The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Sunday Times reports how Beppe Fenech Adami said yesterday that Franco Debono told him he wants to be prime minister. Dr Debono denied the claim. It also reports how a lawyer is seeking compensation after claiming she lost her job because she was pregnant. The newspaper also carries an interview with Joseph Muscat, who says Labour is ready to govern.
The Malta Independent says contacts between the PN and Franco Debono have continued but no agreement has been reached. It also says that thefts increased by 9.6% last year.
MaltaToday features a survey which shows Labour has a nine point lead over the PN with a swing of over 7% by people who voted PN at the last election.
Illum reports how comments by Beppe Fenech Adami created new controversy with Franco Debono.
It-Torca reports on links between contractors and political parties and gives prominence in this context to comments by Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando.
KullHadd says the dispute between the PN and Franco Debono has continued to boil, and a general election appears close. It also says that the employment rate in Malta is the second lowest in Europe, after that of Hungary.
Il-Mument says Joseph Muscat wants to put Jason Micallef head of PBS if Labour is elected to government. It also says that long-term unemployment has fallen.
The overseas press
Major US television networks such as ABC, CNN, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC all report that Republican US presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has emphatically beaten his main rival Mitt Romney in South Carolina. Gingrich's victory means that three different candidates have won the first three contests in the state-by-state battle for the Republican presidential nomination to face Obama, a Democrat, on November 6. Rick Santorum won the Iowa caucuses and Romney won the New Hampshire primary. Florida's January 31 vote is the next up in the state-by-state nominating contest.
AFP reports some 2,000 angry protesters, armed with stones and iron bars and using home-made grenades, forced their way into the offices of Libya's ruling National Transitional Council in Benghazi, setting its front ablaze. The protesters, who threw plastic bottles at NTC head Abdel Jalil when he tried to calm them down, accused the NTC of lacking transparency and recruiting members who were once seen as loyalists of the former regime. They said they now felt marginalised by the new leadership. The NTC has called the incident an attack on the Libyan people and the revolution.
Deutsche Welle says Council of Europe election observers have said Russia needed real political change, not a "survival mechanism" for the current regime. The group, which observed last month's controversial parliamentary elections, was speaking in Moscow as thousands gathered near the Kremlin to demand fair presidential elections next March. Russia's Central Election Commission has dismissed the European delegation's comments as "completely politicised" and accused the mission of overstepping its responsibilities.
In Australia, ABC reports that an independent MP has withdrawn his support for the Labour government accusing Prime Minister Julia Gillard of breaking her agreement on poker machine reform. Gillard has defended he action, arguing Andrew Wilkie's plan for would not have passed through Parliament. However, Wilkie has said he would not back any motions of no-confidence against the government unless there is serious misconduct.
Al Ahram says that according to official results, the political wing of Egypt's moderate Islamist Muslim Brotherhood won 47.18 percent of the vote in the country's first parliamentary elections since the overthrow of former ruler Hosni Mubarak. It took 235 of 498 seats in the assembly. Second in the polls was the ultra-conservative Al Nour party, which scored almost 25 percent of the vote to take 29 percent of the seats – 121 in total. Two liberal, secular parties finished in third and fourth place, while loyalists to the former President won about 3 percent.
Voice of Nigeria confirms at least 150 people have been confirmed dead after a spate of bomb and gun attacks in the countgry’s second largest city, Kano. The Islamist group Boko Haram took responsibility, saying the attacks were an act of vengeance.
Al Arab quotes the national observatory for human rights in London saying former Syrian soldiers have taken control of the city of Duma, 20 km north of Damascus. Meanwhile Al Jazeera says 15 people were killed in an attack on a police bus which was transporting prisoners while 23 others were killed in clashes between soldiers and deserters.
Agi says a committee of Concordia's shipwreck survivors has been set up in Messin to claim damages of at least €500,000 per person, considering that each one of them suffered material damages but, above all, “psychological, irreversible damages”, according to their lawyer, Francesco Fiorillo, a Navigation Law specialist. Former sailor Giuseppe Lanzafame would be the group’s spokesperson. He was on board the ship and was the first to realise that Captain Schettino was making “serious mistakes” . Lanzafame has also underlined that most of the crew members were not adequately trained and managed rescue operations incorrectly.
Le Pelican reports 16-year-old Dutch girl Laura Dekker has become the youngest person to sail around the globe alone. She ended her 27,000 mile voyage on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, where she started her journey last January. She could only begin the journey after a lengthy court battle with Dutch authorities.
Melbourne’s Weekly Times says a blind woman, who saved the life of a taxi driver who suffered a heart attack earlier this month, has been nominated by the Victoria Government for a local hero award. The woman was getting out of the cab at a shopping centre when the driver stumbled out of the vehicle and collapsed on the pavement. She used her cane to find the man and followed an emergency telephone operator's instructions on how to perform CPR until paramedics arrived. The driver is now in a rehabilitation facility after spending a week in intensive care.