The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times says Labour has raised questions on the timing of the prime minister’s trip to Tunisia and Qatar. It also focuses on the opening of the Labour general conference.
The Malta Independent reports how the House Business Committee drew a blank when it met yesterday to fix the agenda of the House.
In-Nazzjon notes that the Opposition has failed to move a vote of no confidence.
l-orizzont’s headline is that Prime Minister Gonzi will go abroad in the midst of a crisis.
The overseas press
The Washington Post reports that the Obama administration has strongly condemned a viral video that depicts marines desecrating corpses as US officials tried to prevent a popular backlash in Afghanistan and forestall damage to nascent peace talks with the Taliban. As the images of marines urinating on three bloodied bodies circulated around the globe, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta denounced the video as “utterly deplorable”. He assured Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who had described the video as “completely inhumane and condemnable in the strongest possible terms”, that the incident would be thoroughly investigated. The army said it had identified at east two of the marines shown in the video.
CNN reports that a US military panel has recommended that Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified government documents to the Wikileaks website, should face a court martial. It concluded there were reasonable grounds to believe that he had committed the alleged offences. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
Metro says police in Britain have opened an investigation into claims the UK secret service, MI6, helped send anti-Gaddafi activists to Libya in 2004. A lawyer acting for two men who say they were detained and tortured with the knowledge of British authorities say former UK government ministers may have been involved.
French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe has called on Syrian authorities to divulge the "whole truth" about the killing on Wednesday of a French journalist in the city of Homs. Juppe told France 2 TV that an "investigation must establish the origin of these events”. France 2 TV journalist Gilles Jacquier was killed after a mortar shell struck the pro-government rally he was attending as part of a government-authorised tour of the city. Eight Syrians also died in the attack.
Researchers in Sweden say there could be a link between eating processed meat and pancreatic cancer. The BBC says a new study indicates that eating the equivalent of one sausage or two slices of bacon each day could increase a person’s risk of developing the disease by 19 per cent compared to people who eat no processed meat at all. Pancreatic cancer is one of the most deadly forms of cancers with a very low survival rate. Processed meat has already been linked to bowel cancer.
The Moscow Times says hours after its launch, the presidential election campaign website of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was flooded with calls for his resignation. Putin’s aides blamed a hacking attack. The presidential election takes place or March 4.
Ansa reports that Italy’s highest court has rejected a proposed referendum on electoral reforms. More than a million people have signed a petition calling or a plebiscite on whether to scrap or change an electoral law brought in by the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi even years ago. The law is controversial because it gives the coalition that wins most votes bonus seats and an automatic majority in parliament.
Dutch national broadcaster NOS reports that Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands has taken on the fiery leader of her country's anti-Muslim party Geert Wilders by dismissing as "nonsense" his criticism of her decision to wear a head scarf during a recent state visit to the United Arab Emirates and Oman. She said she wore the head scarf to show religious respect. Wilders had called the monarch's decision to cover her head "a sad exhibition" that "legitimises the oppression of women".
Voice of Nigeria reports that the country’s main unions say they have had “good talks” with the government over the removal of fuel subsidies but their general strike would continue. Unions have threatened to bring oil and gas production to a halt unless the government reinstated the subsidies. Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil exporter, depends on the commodity for 80 per cent of its state revenues. Strikes over the move, which has doubled petrol prices, began on Monday.
North Korea’s official Central News Agency says the body of Kim Jong-il Kim Jong Il would be put on permanent display in a Pyongyang mausoleum. It quotes the new leadership saying his statues, portraits and memorial towers would be installed across the country. After his father Kim Il-sung, he would be is the second North Korean leader whose embalmed body will be on public display at the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang. Kim, who died last month aged 69.
Cumhuriyet says a former member of the British Royal family is facing charges in a Turkish court. Prince Andrew’s former wife, Sarah Ferguson, made an undercover trip to Turkey in 2008 to examine orphanages for a British programme. Secretly-filmed images appeared to show children tied to their beds. The court has now accused her in her absence of going against the law and violating the privacy of children.
Courier-Mail reports that Australia has hit out at cigarette maker British-American Tobacco for using a kangaroo on its packaging, in a year that would see Australia ban all cigarette branding. The kangaroo and the phrase “An Australian favourite” appear on the company’s Winfield brand in Europe. The government said BAT's "sneaky" branding showed why plain packaging of cigarettes was needed.