The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports how Norwegian mass killer Breivik had visited Malta for ‘historic research’. It also reports how Valletta have been crowned football champions again.
The Malta Independent reports comments by the prime minister that the Government’s track record is the ‘best guarantee’. It also quotes Joseph Muscat saying that the PL is not losing sleep over parliamentary procedure.
In-Nazzjon quotes the prime minister saying that the government saved 5,000 jobs and created 20,000 new ones.
l-orizzont continues to follow reports about alleged money laundering involving the Nauferi Foundation in Malta.
The overseas press
The Wall Street Journal says the International Labour Organisation has warned that unemployment worldwide was at alarming levels and said few new jobs have been created. The ILO's “World of Work Report 2012” says austerity measures were hurting job markets worldwide and predicted global unemployment of 202 million people in 2012 – an increase of six million over last year. It said fiscal austerity and labour market reforms had had "devastating consequences" for employment while mostly failing to cut deficits. It gave a stark warning that governments risked fueling unrest unless they combined tighter spending with job creation. The report says that Malta was one of the six countries of the 36 advanced economies where, since 2007, employment rates have increased.
El Pais says tens of thousands of Spaniards have demonstrated in Madrid against new austerity measures targeting spending on education and health care. The cash-strapped Spanish government on April 20 approved reforms to scrap free medicine for pensioners and charge students higher fees, aiming to save an extra €10 billion a year.
Wiener Zeitung reports that Shokri Ghanem, former chairman of Libya's state-owned National Oil Corporation and one of the most prominent Libyans to defect from Muammar Gaddafi's regime during the uprising last year, has been found dead in in the River Danube in Vienna. Austria's Foreign Ministry said Ghanem, who was 69, died of a suspected heart attack but police are yet to confirm the cause of his death.
Voice of Nigeria reports at least 15 people have been killed in an attack on a church service at a Nigerian university in the northern city of Kano. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, although the attack was similar to others carried out by the Islamist group Boko Haram. The group’s increasingly bloody insurgency has claimed more than 1,000 lives since mid-2009.
Dawn announces that the beheaded body of a kidnapped British Red Cross doctor has been found dumped by a roadside in Pakistan. Khalil Rasjed Dale, 60, was kidnapped by suspected militants on January 5 while on his way home from work near the city of Quetta, in Pakistan's south-west.
Chinese authorities have begun to round up relatives and associates of blind activist Chen Guangcheng, who fled from house arrest last week. The BBC quotes reports saying, several people involved in Chen's escape have been detained or have disappeared in recent days. Chen is believed to be sheltering at the US embassy in Beijing. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has demanded his release in the past, is due in China this week for a previously arranged meeting which is now likely to be overshadowed by Chen's case. The US government has not so far commented publicly on Chen’s whereabouts.
Myanmar Daily News says EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton has met Burma's pro-democracy leader, Aung San Suu Kyi. Ashton, who is in the country to show the EU's support for recent political reforms, said she would open a new, embassy-level office in Rangoon. Last week the EU suspended sanctions against Burma for a year in recognition of "historic changes".
Al Jazeera says a veteran peacekeeper urged all sides to "stop the violence" as he flew in to Syria to lead a UN observer force tasked with monitoring a two-week-old ceasefire that has failed to stop the bloodshed. Norwegian Major General Robert Mood has renewed calls for both sides to respect the recent ceasefire and lay down their arms.
ABC says police in Australia said almost 1,000 charges have been laid during a weekend-long operation targeting gun crime and criminal gangs in New South Wales. A total of 555 people were as police carried out bail and parole checks and inspections on pubs, clubs and tattoo parlours. A blitz on drink-driving saw 107 charges laid. Police say they seized 14 guns over the weekend as well as illegal and prescription drugs.
Toronto Star says actor Richard Gere has criticised Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for meeting the Dalai Lama privately rather than publicly. Mr Harper met the exiled leader in his Parliament Hill office in Ottawa, which billed the meeting as a "private courtesy call".
The annual Sunday Times Rich List says the United Kingdom's richest people have defied the double-dip recession to become even richer over the past year. The paper says its research showed the UK's richest people have increased their wealth by 5 per cent. The top 1,000 people on the list now have a combined wealth of more than $640 billion. For the eighth year in a row, steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal holds the top spot with a personal wealth of about $20 billion.
The Miami Herald reports the wife of a Florida millionaire let two attackers into her hotel room, pointed them to her sleeping husband and gave them a pillow to muffle his screams as they beat him with dumbbells. Alejandro Garcia, who has already been convicted, gave evidence for a third day at the murder trial of Narcy Novack, 55, of Fort Lauderdale, and her brother Cristobal Veliz, 58, of Philadelphia. They are accused of hiring Garcia and others in a plot that included the killing of hotel heir Ben Novack and his mother Bernice in 2009.