The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports how the Prime Minister yesterday denied that Malta has had any contact with Nato. It also says that businesswoman in Malta disagree with an EU plan for quotas to guarantee positions for women in decision-making positions.
The Malta Independent reports that Libyan warplanes have struck at a rebel-held oil terminal at Ras Lanuf.
In-Nazzjon says Malta is firm in its commitment to provide humanitarian aid to Libya.
l-orizzont says the GWU has complained that the Air Malta restructuring plan does not have its agreement.
The overseas press
The Washington Times reports that the US and its NATO allies edged closer on Monday to formulating a military response to the escalating violence in Libya as the alliance boosted surveillance flights over the country and the Obama administration signalled it might be willing to help arm Gaddafi's opponents.
The International Herald Tribune quotes President Obama warning that the US and NATO were still considering military options to stop what he called "unacceptable" violence by Gaddafi's regime. US ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder said NATO had decided to boost flights of AWACs surveillance planes over Libya from 10 to 24 hours a day.
In an exclusive interview with France 24, Gaddafi repeated his claim that al Qaeda was responsible for plunging the country into chaos and denied media reports of mass killings. A seemingly collected Gaddafi explained that there had been at most 150 to 200 people killed. Libyan Foreign Minister Musa Kusa told a news conference in Tripoli that anti-government forces were getting help from al-Qaeda.
Early this morning, Al Jazeera has aired pictures it received from anti-Gaddafi forces that purportedly show Libyan army officers killed for refusing to fire on the rebels in the mountainous region west of Tripoli. A survivor of the killings said the men were rounded-up, their legs tied before being shot in the head or back from close range.
Al Ahram reports Egypt’s military rulers have sworn in a new cabinet that includes new faces in key ministries. The caretaker government’s main job and challenge would be to help steer the country through reforms and toward free elections.
As Sabah says Tunisia's interior ministry has announced it was dissolving the country's secret police service, widely accused of committing human rights abuses during the rule of President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali. Interim Prime Minister Caid Essebsi has also announced a new government, which includes no members of the old regime.
The New York Post reports President Obama has reversed course and ordered a resumption of military trials for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay – making his once ironclad promise to close the maximum security prison look even more distant. Guantanamo has been a major political and national security headache for the president since he took office promising to close the prison within a year, a deadline that came and went without him ever setting a new one.
Le Parisien says a Paris court needed time to rule whether a historic corruption trial that started on Monday, with former French President Jacques Chirac as the star defendant, adhered to France's constitution and could go forward. The trial evolves on Chirac's time as Paris mayor between 1977 and 1995 – before he was elected president – and claims that he and his allies misused city funds. He has denied the allegations.
El Universal reports that a young woman who made international headlines when she accepted the job as police chief in a violent Mexican border town has been fired for abandoning her post after receiving death threats. Marisol Valles Garcia was granted a leave of absence from March 2 to 7 to travel to the United States for personal matters but failed to return to the post and the mayor decided to remove her from office. Reports said she was seeking asylum in the United States.
Corriere della Sera says Italian Prime Miniter Silvio Berlusconi has undergone four hours of face surgery to repair damage he suffered when a man hurled a statuette at him in 2009. The operation involved a bone transplant and an implant.
Il Tempo quotes the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) calling for gender equality in agriculture in order to increase farm production. In its 2010-11 State of Food and Agriculture report, FAO said that if women in rural areas had the same access to land, technology, financial services, education and markets as men, agricultural production could be increased and reduce the number of hungry people by between 100 and150 million.
Los Angeles Times reports that Warner Bros have fired Charlie Sheen from the popular TV series "Two and a Half Men" following the actor's bouts of wild partying, repeated hospitalizations and a bitter media campaign against his studio bosses. The action, taken after "careful consideration", was effective immediately, the studio said in a statement.