The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times leads with a curtain-raiser on tonight’s crunch eurozone leaders’ summit. It also reports how Nationalist MP Robert Arrigo said yesterday he is being blackmailed.
The Malta Independent says Germany is pessimistic over today’s summit meeting on the euro crisis. It also says that PT Matic is to transport Delimara hazardous waste.
In-Nazzjon says opening time at the Outpatients Department in Mater Dei is to be extended in order to reduce waiting time.
l-orizzont reports that the doctor who certified Vince Farrugia’s injuries used to go out with his daughter. It also reports that the ETUC has called on the eurozone countries not to put undue pressure on the workers or on jobs in a bid to solve the euro crisis.
The overseas press
US President Barack Obama has telephoned German Chancellor Angela Merkel to discuss German and French efforts to resolve Europe's debt crisis which is affecting the global economy. Voice of America reports quotes the White House said the two leaders agreed on the need to find a lasting and credible solution for the eurozone crisis. The US president has repeatedly urged European leaders to do what is necessary to fix the crisis as soon as possible.
Le Soir says Obama’s latest call came ahead of today’s summit of European Union leaders in Brussels. Germany and France are pressing for quick action to resolve the continent's debt crisis and save the common euro currency. According to France 24, Chancellor Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy detailed their plan yesterday to end the two-year debt contagion in a letter to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy. Their plan calls for automatic penalties against governments that violate budget limits, a unified corporate tax rate and a new financial transaction tax.
Börzen Zeitung reports that Merkel and Sarkozy acted under additional pressure from the credit agency Standard & Poor's, which warned it could cut the credit rating of the 27-nation bloc and some large eurozone banks. On Monday, the agency said it may downgrade 15 of the 17 nations that use the euro, including Germany and France. Now it said that if eurozone countries were downgraded, the whole bloc would have its rating cut down by one notch. The agency also said it has put on its watch the performance of large European banks such as France's Societe Generale, Italy's UniCredit and Germany's Deutsche Bank.
The Wall Street Journal says that US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, fearful of the effects of a euro collapse on the fragile American economy, is on a three-day visit to European capitals to prod officials to adopt strong measures. After meeting with French Finance Minister Francois Baroin in Paris, Geithner expressed confidence that the European officials would move to control government spending, create new economic growth and calm jittery financial markets worried about governments defaulting on their debts.
In other news….
Fox News reports that the former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich has been sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption. He has been found guilty last June of 17 counts of graft, including trying to sell the US Senate seat once held by President Obama. The former two-term Democratic governor has been ordered pay a $20,000 (€15,000) fine as part of his sentence, and would report to prison on February 16. He is expected to appeal the sentence.
Ceremonies have been held across the United States to mark the seventieth anniversary of the Japanese attack on the US Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbour. CNN gives ample coverage to a ceremony in Hawaii itself, where 120 veterans observed a minute’s silence at 7.55 a.m. – the exact moment the attack began. Some 2,400 Americans died in the attacks. President Obama called for US flags to be flown at half mast on federal buildings across the country.
Deutsche Welle reports that Afghanistan, Russia and Kosovo are all on the agenda at a two-day meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels. The conference is also to discuss Russian threats to deploy missiles to Kaliningrad and other places in Russia as a countermeasure to NATO's missile defense system. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he hoped the issue could be resolved before a NATO-Russian summit in Chicago next May.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has denied ordering a deadly crackdown on anti-regime protesters. In a rare interview with ABC News, he claimed most of the victims of the nine-month uprising were government supporters. The United Nations has estimated that more than 4,000 people have died since the pro-democracy uprising began nine-months ago.
Tripoli Post reports protests in the Libyan capital against former rebels who helped liberate the city from the forces of Col. Muammar Gaddafi. Pressure to disarm the former rebels has grown after several skirmishes between rival groups.
Informador quotes the authorities in Mexico saying they had thwarted a plot to smuggle one of Colonel Gaddafi's sons, Saadi, into the country. He has been under house arrest in Niger since he fled Libya last September. A Mexican Government spokesperson said intelligence reports allowed them to stop attempts by a criminal gang to smuggle Saadi and members of his family into the country using false documents. Several people have been arrested.
In good news for Christmas partygoers, a new company has launched a product in Ireland to detect what, apart from alcohol, gives people hangovers. The Irish Examiner says the firm, YorkTest Laboratories, has produced the first drink intolerance testing programme in the world, the YorkTest DrinkScan. They claim it is helping people avoid some nasty reactions to drinks by pinpointing ingredients in wine, spirits and beer as well as the less obvious teas, coffees and minerals they never realised caused any problems. They claim that by tailoring what people drink to suit their body they can help avoid that terrible morning after feeling and make the most of Christmas.