The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times says that the Maltese in Libya are packing their bags as instability grows.
The Malta Independent says there is still demand for skilled airline workers, despite a decision by SR Technics to postpone the building of a new hangar.
l-orizzont says theft cases increased by 13% last year, yet some areas with high unemployment have seen crime decrease.
In-Nazzjon says a Curia report on feasts is expected to be completed soon. It also quotes the prime minister saying that the government’s top priority remains job creation.
The overseas press
Al Jazeera reports that anti-Libyan government protests have spread to the capital Tripoli by early this morning and large crowds were on the streets chanting for the regime to be toppled. Sustained gunfire could be heard as clouds of teargas drifted across the city. Several buildings, including police stations were reported to have been set ablaze and weapons seized. Protests have also reportedly broken out in other cities, including Bayda, Derna, Tobruk and Misrata. The reports came on a day during which local residents told the network that at least 200 people had died in days of unrest in the country’s second largest city, Benghazi, where residents said a military unit had joined their cause.
The Libyan leader’s son, Sayf al-Islam, has warned of civil war in the country. Akhbar al-Youm says that in a TV address to the nation, he said that the government would "fight to the last bullet" to stay in office. He played down casualties, suggesting that at most 14 people, not 200, died in clashes in the eastern city of Benghazi. And he promised "reform and democracy", saying that Libya's legislative forum would meet later today.
The Wall Street Journal says there was no information of the current whereabouts of the Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. It quotes a US official saying the State Department checked and couldn't confirm reports that Col. Gaddafi had left the country.
The Al-Zuwayya tribe in eastern Libya has threatened to cut off oil exports unless authorities stop what he called the "oppression of protesters". The Warfala tribe, one of Libya's biggest, has reportedly joined the anti-Gaddafi protests. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Shaikh Faraj al Zuway said: "We will stop oil exports to Western countries within 24 hours" if the violence did not stop. Akram Al-Warfalli, a leading figure in the Al Warfalla tribe, one of Libya's biggest, told the network: "We tell the brother (Gaddafi), well he's no longer a brother, we tell him to leave the country." The tribe lives south of Tripoli.
Al Arabiya reports that opposition websites in Iran have called for more anti-government protests today. As people took to the streets yesterday, witnesses have reported seeing tear gas fired in Valiasr Square and outside the state television building in Tehran. Footage has also emerged apparently showing security forces on motorbikes, chasing protesters through the streets in the city of Shiraz. And there are also reports that protests have spread to the cities of Esfahan and Mahabad.
La Gazette du Maroc says thousands of protesters took to the streets in Morocco on Sunday to demand sweeping changes to the nation's constitution, In Rabat, the capital, a crowd of up to 10,000 people marched through the streets chanting slogans against the government, corruption and state television.
In Yemen, Al Thawra reports hundreds of students clashed with President Saleh supporters outside a university in the capital Sanaa. Reports said riot police watched the march but had not yet intervened.
According to Al Wasat, Bahrain's opposition groups were expected to make demands of the Gulf state's rulers after Crown Prince Sheikh Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa, who is head of the armed forces, withdrew troops and protesters retook a symbolic roundabout. Anti-government protesters swarmed back to Pearl roundabout in the capital Manama.
Asia Observer says pro-democracy activists in China have been thwarted in their attempt to start Middle East-style protests demanding more rights. Messages calling for a revolution had been circulated on the internet ahead of protests in 13 cities across the country. But as the time for the protest approached in Beijing, scores of police descended on the designated area in Wanfujing, an upmarket shopping district.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union suffered a heavy electoral defeat in Hamburg on Sunday. According to preliminary results released by German broadcaster ZDF, the center-right party secured just 20 per cent of the vote in Hamburg – less than half of the 42.6 per cent the party garnered in the last election there in 2008. The main opposition party, the Social Democrats, won 50 per cent of the vote, up strongly from 34.1 per cent in 2008,.
Kampala’ The New Vision says Uganda's President Yoweri Museveni won another term but the top opposition leader alleged the election was fraudulent and vowed to reject the results. The electoral commission said Museveni won 68 per cent of the vote, allowing him to extend his 25-year hold on power. The commission said challenger Kizza Besigye took 26 per cent of the vote.
Estonia Times reports that at eas 10 children have died in a fire which swept through a home for disabled children in the western Estonian town of Haapsalu. Nine adults and 37 children were inside the one-storey wooden building when the fire started during the children's' afternoon nap. The cause of the blaze has not yet been established.