The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports comments by the Libyan prime minister that the migration gates are wide open in Libya. It also says that VAT fraud risk measures were taken after the VAT Department audit report.
The Malta Independent says a migrant who survived Gaddafi’s torture machine has spoken on pushbacks. It also reports how the former private secretary of the Finance Minister has admitted bribery.
In-Nazzjon focuses on the meeting which the prime minister had with the anti-divorce movement, where he said that children have to feature in the divorce referendum considerations.
l-orizzont gives prominence to the spectacular crash of a bus in Rabat early yesterday. No one was injured. Its main story, however, is about exploitation in the engagement of care workers.
The overseas press
Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi has appeared on state television – the first time he has been seen in weeks. Footage screened by the Al-Libiya TV showed him meeting and talking to what were billed as tribal leaders in a Tripoli hotel. He was wearing a brown robe with a hat and sunglasses and sat in an armchair near a small round table. He appeared to be in good health. A presenter said the meeting took place on Wednesday, and the camera zoomed in on a screen in the background bearing the date. Col Gaddafi last appeared in public on April 30, when a Nato air strike on a house in the capital killed his youngest son and three of his grandchildren. His absence from public view sparked speculation that he had been wounded or even killed.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini has said Muammar Gaddafi has until the end of May to agree his exile before an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court is issued. In an interview with RAI radio, he said there were countries that in recent weeks have indicated a willingness to welcome him. He warned that if there was an international arrest warrant it would be more difficult to find an arrangement for the colonel and his family.
Al Jazeera reports that rebels fighting forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi have captured the airport in the western city of Misurata. It quotes a rebel spokesman saying anti-Gaddafi forces succeeded in driving loyalists from the area.
Ekstra Bladett says Denmark is to reinstate security checks at its borders with Germany and Sweden amid concerns over an influx of migrants into Europe from North Africa. Denmark is a member of Europe's visa-free Schengen Area, meaning it cannot set up full frontier controls.
Several European countries summoned Syrian ambassadors on Wednesday as the EU threatened to intensify sanctions against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad if it continued to repress protests against his rule. Deutsche Welle says the measure was part of "a concerted European action" to pressure Damascus into easing the opposition crackdown. Human rights groups claim that more than 600 people have been killed and 8,000 are either missing or have been imprisoned during the eight-week crackdown on protesters.
The Wall Street Journal reports at least 14 people were injured and 24 others arrested as clashes broke out when some 20,000 took to the streets of Athens to voice their disapproval of Greek public and private spending cuts worth an estimated €23 billion. The police fired tear gas at stone-throwing youths and demonstrators during the 24-hour nationwide strike which closed schools and communications networks and brought public air, sea and land transport to a halt.
Tageblatt says the EU’s Court of Justice meeting in Luxembourge has ruled that same-sex couples in civil partnerships must receive the same pension benefits as their married, heterosexual colleagues. The judges were responding to a case brought by a German man against his employer, the city of Hamburg. The EU has banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and the court found that a lower pension could contravene EU law.
The Irish Examiner quotes Minister for Children Frances Fitzgerald saying she was very disappointed that Church authorities did not fully co-operate with the National Board for the Safeguarding of Children in the Catholic Church. She said that anything less than full cooperation with the board could not be tolerated and that she would now consider the report's implications in detail. The watchdog also revealed that just 53 new allegations had initially been reported to it by Church authorities before a final check revealed that a total of 272 new allegations had actually been received during the year.
US officials say that Osama bin Laden kept a hand-written journal filled with planning ideas and details of operations. Associated Press reports Osama bin Laden kept pressing his followers to find new ways to hit the US, suggested they “strike smaller cities, target trains as well as planes but, above all, kill as many Americans as possible in a single attack”. The journal was part of a huge cache of intelligence that US Navy SEALs collected after they swept through the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
El Pais says 10 people were killed and dozens injured when two earthquakes in quick succession hit the Murcia region of southeast Spain and caused major damage to buildings. Lines of cars lay crushed under tonnes of rubble and a hospital was evacuated as a precaution.
Science Daily reports that the global impact of natural disasters took a turn for the worse in 2010 with an increase in fatalities and economic damage. According to the Annual Disaster Statistical Review 2010, there were 385 natural disasters worldwide last year that killed more than 297,000 people, affected over 217 million others and caused $123.9 billion in economic damages.
More than 1,100 women are raped every day in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), making sexual violence against women 26 times more common than previously thought. A study published in the American Journal of Public Health shows that more than 400,000 women and girls between the ages of 15 and 49 were raped in the war-ravaged country during a 12-month period – 26 times more than the 15,000 women that the United Nations has reported were raped there during the same 12 months.