The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports how a Transport Malta architect pocketed €93m in two years as a result of a road works fraud. It also features reactions to the latest comments by Franco Debono.
The Malta Independent says a European Commissioner, Antonio Tajani, speaking at a business breakfast on tourism, suggested privatisation of Air Malta. It also says that ACTA will not hinder generics production, according to speakers at a University seminar yesterday.
In-Nazzjon carries comments by the prime minister that local councils are important partners for the government. It also highlights the opening of a new civic centre in St Paul's Bay.
l-orizzont features a strong statement by the MUMN about the deployment of nurses and asks if healthcare is being dismantled. It also highlights comments given by Franco Debono yesterday to The Times.
The overseas press
Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny has warned that Europe would move on without Ireland next year if the EU fiscal treaty referendum was not passed. He described a yes vote in the country’s referendum as an "insurance policy" for Ireland's future. Kenny’s statement to Midwest Radio came after Moody’s warned that Ireland would find itself cut off from European funding if the country voted no, as it would not have access to the European Stability Mechanism.
The Moscow Times says Russian police have arrested more than 500 people in Moscow and in Saint Petersburg protesting against Vladimir Putin's crushing victory in presidential elections. As many as 20,000 demonstrators filled a square in central Moscow to protest against the election, which Mr Putin won with more than 60 per cent of the vote. International monitors have said the election was clearly skewed to favour Mr Putin, and the opposition has denounced the result as illegitimate.
The Washington Times reports President Barack Obama has assured Israel that the United States would always stand by it. In a display of unity between allies who often disagree, Obama told visiting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu they agreed that diplomacy was the best way to resolve the crisis over potential Iranian nuclear weapons.
The head of the UN nuclear agency has “serious concerns” that Iran may be hiding secret atomic weapons work and admits he failed in his latest attempt to unearth them. Reuters reports International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano spoke to the 35-nation IAEA board amid backdoor diplomatic manoeuvring aimed at coming up with substantial joint pressure on Iran to end its nuclear defiance and address global concerns about its nuclear activities.
USA Today says Mitt Romney hopes to use Super Tuesday’s massive batch of primary contests in 10 states to reassert himself as the unchallenged front-runner in the race to challenge President Obama. At stake in today’s voting were 419 out of 1,144 delegates to the party’s national nominating convention. The outcome could again reshape the battle which has seen several candidates, Rick Santorum being the latest, make a serious run at Romney.
The Daily Telegraph reports that in a letter to be read from the pulpit in 2,500 churches during Mass this Sunday, the Archbishop of Westminster would warn that the true meaning of marriage was in danger of being lost under David Cameron’s plans to extend it to same-sex couples. The Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, leader of five million Roman Catholics in England and Wales, would say that redefining marriage to include homosexuals would be a “profoundly radical step” stripping it of its “distinctive nature”. At the weekend, Cardinal Keith O’Brien, leader of the Roman Catholic Church in Scotland, accused the coalition of a “grotesque subversion”.
According to Global Post, disasters cost the world a record figure of more than $US380 billion (€287 billion) last year –two-thirds higher than the last record in 2005, when the United States suffered huge losses from Hurricane Katrina. The UN report says this time, earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand, as well as floods in Thailand and other countries sent the cost skyrocketing.
Secretly shot video footage aired by Britain's Channel 4 claims to show that Syrian patients were being tortured by medical staff at a state-run hospital in Homs. The TV station said it had obtained footage of shocking scenes at the military hospital in Homs, filmed covertly by an employee and smuggled out by a French photojournalist identified only as "Mani". The video, which Channel 4 said could not independently verify, showed wounded, blindfolded men chained to beds. Meanwhile, Syrian forces have bombarded the rebel stronghold of Rastan for the second day running, as former UN chief Kofi Annan prepared a diplomatic drive to end the year-long bloodshed.
Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Libyan jailed for life following the 1988 Lockerbie bombing told investigators that he regularly travelled to Malta to have sex. Mail Online says Megrahi's claims came as he tried to explain his presence in Malta to investigators, and are detailed in secret documents which have been seen by BBC Scotland. The 821 page report, includes Megrahi's statement, given to defence lawyers before his trial in which he boasted how easy it was for him to travel between Libya and Malta as well as claiming he had a mistress in the country. Prosecutors believe the suitcase in which the bomb was hidden, was loaded on to a plane in Malta, which then travelled on to Frankfurt, and Heathrow, before finally detonating on Pan Am Flight 103 in the sky above southern Scotland.