The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times says an €18m Delimara project has been withdrawn. The EU had objected to what it said was state aid for the refurbishment of two power station boilers using EU funds.
The Malta Independent reports comments by the prime minister that sexuality laws are to be strengthened following homophobic attacks. It also says that an austerity meeting by Greek leaders has been postponed again.
MaltaToday says the new parole system is just words as the infrastructural framework to support the law is not in place yet.
In-Nazzjon quotes the prime minister describing how government assistance to investors has guaranteed jobs. It also reports on the strong take-up for government stock.
l-orizzont says obstacles are still hindering the removal of a pumping station on the SmartCity development which, it had been claimed, held up the project. Mepa is still awaiting details from the WSC.
The overseas press
Euronews reports that the arctic conditions in Europe have claimed close to 450 lives over the past 10 days. The Balkans remained the worst hit with deaths in Ukraine and Poland at 136 and 68 respectively. Most of the dead, mainly homeless and alcoholics, died of hypothermia but others were victims of heart attacks from exertion, slippery roads, electrical accidents, and floods from ice-blocked rivers or melting snow. The European Commission said gas supplies from Russia had improved but had not fully recovered.
In Algeria, El Watan says the army had to intervene to try to see how to reach thousands of people stranded after four days of heavy snowfalls which blocked at least 175 main roads. Schools have been closed as students cannot reach them, even on foot. There are blackouts in most of the provinces and the 140,000 inhabitants of the city of Medea are without water supplies after an avalanche destroyed most of the network.
Kathimerini reports that increasingly-fraught negotiations went on in Athens during the night over more austerity measures being demanded by Brussels as Greece continued fighting to avoid economic disaster amid political stalemate, nationwide strikes and controversial claims that the country could leave the eurozone without triggering a single currency crisis. European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes raised the temperature by telling the Dutch newspaper Volkskrant that the eurozone would not collapse if Greece withdrew. Le Soir says the European Commission immediately went into damage control, denying Kroes had asked for Greece to leave the euro area, or that that was a likely scenario
The BBC quotes Gulf Arab states saying they were expelling Syrian ambassadors in their countries and recalling their envoys from Syria. The US and several European countries had also recalled their ambassadors, exerting pressure to end 11 months of bloodshed. The moves came as Syrian government forces continued their fierce assault on the restive city of Homs, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Damascus. Speaking after talks with President Bashar al-Assad, Lavrov said the president was ready to seek dialogue with all political groups. Syrian media quoted President Assad as saying he was willing to co-operate with "any efforts towards stability".
Kyiv Post reports that a keynote speech to parliament by Ukraine’s president has been disrupted by supporters of the jailed opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, who is serving seven years for abuse of office. As Viktor Yanukovich tried to speak, the protest continued for half an hour. The EU and the US back opposition claims that Tymoshenko’s trial was politically motivated.
Clarin says Argentina is to make a formal complaint against Britain to the United Nations about what it calls the “militarisation” around the disputed Falkland Islands. President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner made the announcement at a meeting of MPs, senior officials, and veterans of the 1982 war Argentina fought with Britain over the islands. Tensions rose y in recent weeks after the deployment of a British warship and Prince William's a six-week mission with the Royal Air Force, in what Britain insisted was a routine deployment. But Argentina has slammed it as "provocation" and claimed William wore the "uniform of the conqueror".
One minor out of three meets in person someone known online, with all the risks it entices. Even more dangerously, one 16-17-year-old out of six sends videos or images in which the minor appears naked, to "virtual" pals who could turn out to be terribly real. AGI says this was the picture presented by Save the Children, while celebrating Safer Internet Day. It quotes Valerio Neri, general director of Save the Children Italia saying that a child that used the Internet without the intellectual tools needed to deal with a medium so rich of possibilities, as well as risks, was a child that risked to be abused.
The Sun's editor Dominic Mohan has defended his paper's use of 'page three' girls after being recalled to the Leveson Inquiry, the ongoing public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the British press following the News International phone hacking scandal. According to Sky News, he described them as "good role models" and "very healthy", saying the 42-year-old tradition had become a part of British society.
Kinshasa’s L'Avenir reports that football fans in the Democratic Republic of Congo hurled accusations of witchcraft at each other after a freak blast of lightning struck dead an entire team on the playing field while their opponents were left completely untouched. In a similar, though less deadly incident in South Africa over the weekend, six players from a local team were hurt when lightning struck the playing field during a thunderstorm.