The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times leads with an interview with Suha Arafat, the widow of the former Palestian leader in which she says that reports that an international arrest warrant has been issued against her were part of an attempt at character assassination. In another story, the newspaper reports that €3,500 were stolen from the jacket of the motorcyclist who died in a road traffic accident some days ago. It also reports on the lost video evidence of the alleged beating of a young man in Paceville.
The Malta Independent reports on a seminar held yesterday under the President’s patronage. During the seminar it was stated that children wished for their parents to be calmer and to listen to them more. It also reports on the economic situation in Europe.
l-Orizzont also leads with the children’s message for calmer parents. It reports about the PN’s executive extraordinary meeting held to discuss the motion of no confidence in Transport Minister Austin Gatt last night. The newspaper quotes Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi saying he would evaluate the possibility of moving an amendment to the Opposition’s motion.
In-Nazzjon reports Dr Gonzi saying that Eurozone challenges should be changed into opportunities. It also reports on the PN executive council meeting and says that public transport reform talks would continue. The newspaper says that Malta was one of 107 states and 11 EU states which yesterday backed the Palestinian membership of UNESCO.
International news
The latest deal to tackle the eurozone debt crisis – hammered out at a marathon EU summit in Brussels last week – has been thrown into doubt with the surprise announcement that Greece is to hold a referendum on the new package of austerity measures. The Wall Street Journal quotes Prime Minister Georges Papandreou telling Socialist MPs that the Greek people would have the final say on the deal. More than 60 per cent of Greeks are opposed to the terms of the new bail-out, which would include another 100,000 job losses over the next three years and big cuts in pensions. Analysts say a "no" vote could bring down the government, cut off international funding for Greece, and propel their country out of the euro zone.
Kathimerini says that Papandreou also announced that a vote of confidence in his government would be held this week to endorse the referendum proposal. That vote would follow a three-day debate on Greece’s worsening economic and social problems. Conservative opposition leader Antonis Samaras immediately rejected the proposal, arguing that a referendum was “not the way out”. He said the only option was elections.
Bloomberg says the announcement exacerbated declines in the euro and equities. Banking shares fell in a number of markets amid continuing fears about the impact of the eurozone debt crisis. In New York, the Dow Jones index of leading companies fell sharply. The euro fell two per cent against the dollar and the US Volatility index – the so-called "index of fear" – climbed 22 per cent – its biggest one-day rise since mid-August.
A report by the UN’s International Labour Organisation says that the international economy was on the brink of a deep new economic crisis that could cost millions of jobs around the globe and trigger mass social unrest. The Financial Times says the report warned it could take until 2016 for global employment to return to the levels of three years ago – and that anger could erupt on the streets of Europe and other continents as a result.
Meanwhile, Canada’s Financial Post says that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) also slashed its growth forecasts for many of the world's biggest economies. It called on G20 leaders meeting in Cannes on Thursday to take decisive action as the outlook was “gloomy”, warning that parts of Europe were likely to fall back into recession next year. It said if the eurozone debt crisis took a turn for the worse, total output in some advanced economies could contract by up to five per cent by 2013.
In what The Jerusalem Post termed as “a dramatic move that inched the Palestinian Authority closer to its bid for unilateral statehood”, UNESCO yesterday accepted Palestine as the 195th member of its organization. And the United States promptly responded by announcing it would not make a planned $60 million payment to the agency due this month. A huge cheer erupted in UNESCO’s General Assembly in Paris as it gave the Palestinians a symbolic victory in their unilateral statehood battle after 107 nations voted in favour, 14 against, and 52 abstained. PA’s news agency, Wafa, quotes President Mahmoud Abbas saying, the vote was a vote for peace.
The New York Times says that the UN Security Council has expressed deep concern over the fate of a massive weapon stockpile built up in Libya under ousted leader Muammar Gaddafi. The council called on Libya and its neighbours to stamp out the proliferation of looted arms, saying they could fall into the hands of al-Qaeda and other militant groups. The UN vote came as Nato formally ended its seven-month air campaign in Libya. Coinciding with the official end of the Nato campaign, the transitional authorities named Abdurrahim al-Keib as the country’s new prime minister. An academic specialising in electrical engineering and based in Tripoli, he is seen as a concensus candidated.
Moscow Times reports that two Russian families have won €72,000 compensation each from a maternity home that accidentally switched their 12-year old daughters at birth. The families learned recently about the switch after the former husband of Yuliya Belyayeva refused to support their daughter, Irina, because she did not look like him. A DNA test revealed that neither of them was Irina’s parent. An official investigation tracked down Irina’s biological father, Naimat Iskanderov, who had been raising Mrs Belyayeva’s own child, Anna. The girls apparently do not want to leave the parents who raised them, so the families are thinking of using the compensation money, which is huge by Russian standards, to get houses close to each other or even share a home.