The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times says the European Commission will decide next month on whether to institute excessive deficit procedures against Malta.
The Malta Independent reports how the head of the Ophthalmology Department described Parliamentary Secretary Mercieca’s remarks about his skills as unfair.
In-Nazzjon says the head of secretariat in the health ministry is a cousin of the minister’s wife.
l-orizzont says Marthese Portelli, president of the PN executive, was paid an extra allowance as a Wasteserv director because she was a resident of Gozo, yet she lived in Malta.
The overseas press
The FBI has released photos and video of two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings and is asking for the public’s help in identifying the men. CNN quotes FBI Agent Richard DesLauriers, who is heading the investigation, saying the images, depicting one man with a black baseball cap and one with a white cap, came from surveillance cameras near the explosion sites shortly before the blasts. He said the men are considered to be “armed and extremely dangerous” and asked the public not to approach the men.
Fox News says the FBI images were released hours after President Obama attended an interfaith service in Boston to remember the victims, including an eight-year-old boy. Mr Obama promised a grieving city to hunt down whoever was responsible. At the interfaith service honouring the victims, the president called the perpetrators of the attack “these small, stunted individuals who would destroy instead of build”. The blasts killed eight-year-old Martin Richard, 29-year-old Krystle Campbell and Lu Lingzi, a graduate student from China. Seven victims remained in critical condition.
NBC confirms that as many as 15 people were killed, between 30 and 40 people are missing and some 160 others injured in a huge explosion at a fertiliser plant in Texas. Authorities fear they will find more bodies following the blast, which had the force of a 2.1-magnitude earthquake. The situation remained volatile at the plant, with ammonium nitrate still present. The police are keeping an open mind about the cause of the blast, which destroyed dozens of homes. AFP reported that in 2012, the factory was fined by US regulators over its transport of hazardous materials.
Ansa reports that Italy's parliament has failed to elect a new president during a second round of voting with no candidate winning the required two-thirds of the vote. The majority of the ballots were spoilt by party members from across the political sphere playing for time in the hope of agreeing on a winning candidate.A third vote is set to take place this morning. As lawmakers failed to agree, some cast prank ballots for porn star Rocco Siffredi, actress Sophia Loren football coach Giovanni Trapattoni, Silvio Berlusconi’s wife Veronica Lario and buxom starlet Valeria Marini. As the names were read out, there were peals of laughter and bursts of applause.
Der Spiegel says Germany's parliament has approved the planned bailout for Cyprus. In a vote in the Bundestag, the aid program obtained a clear majority after most members of the opposition Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens voted to approve it. The bailout legislation received 487 votes in favor and 102 against it, with 13 abstaining. Legislators also voted in favour of seven-year extensions for crisis loans provided to Ireland and Portugal.
Cyprus Mail reports the country’s parliament has increased the country’s corporate tax rate from the current 10 per cent, one of the lowest in Europe, to 12.5 pe cent as part of a package of measures to secure a controversial €10 billion rescue package that must still be ratified by parliament. The move is expected to raise €600 million. Lawmakers also approved increasing the defence levy on profits from interest on deposits from 15 per cent to 30 per cent and raised from 0.11 percent to 0.15 percent the levy on credit institutions' transactions. A vote on additional public sector pay cuts of up to two per cent would be taken next week.
Suicide and murder rates in Greece climbed between 2007 and 2009, particularly among men, when the country’s once robust economy collapsed into recession following the global economic crisis of 2007, with unemployment rising from 7.2 per cent in 2008 to 22.6 per cent in early 2012. A study by the American Journal of Public Health suggests the decline in health came as Greece took out billions in loans to stave off financial collapse and implemented cut the health budget by 24 per cent. For patients, the cuts meant many services that were once free now cost money out of pocket, including higher prices for hospitalization. There were salary freezes and layoffs in the health sector, and many preventive programmes were stopped.
ABC reports Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf has fled from Islamabad's High Court after a judge ordered his arrest on charges of treason. General Musharraf's charges date from 2007 during his time in power. He had planned to stand at the forthcoming elections. Now instead he is accused of treason after imposing emergency rule and detaining more than 60 of the nation's judges, including chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
Al bawaba says a suicide bombing in a Baghdad café has killed 26 people and wounded 35 others. The Iraqi police said that the deadly attack took place when a suicide bomber set off his explosive belt inside a café full of customers in western Baghdad. Two children and a woman were among the dead.
Time magazine has named Pope Francis, ECB chief Mario Draghi and Italian footballer Mario Balotelli among its list of the 100 most influwntial people of 2012. Also included on the list are President Obama, North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, the Duchess of Cambridge, music’s power couple rapper Jay-Z and Beyoncé, and Pakistani teenager Malala Yousufzai, who made world headlines after being shot in the head by the Taliban.
It’s a good problem to have, but it’s still a problem for three men who have reportedly been deported from Saudi Arabia for being “too handsome”. The Arabic-language newspaper Elaph reports three men visiting Saudi Arabia to attend an annual cultural festival in Riyadh, were forcibly removed by members of Saudi Arabia’s religion police. Their offence? They were considered “too handsome” to stay for fear that women would find them irresistible and fall for them. The Emirati men were subsequently deported to Abu Dhabi. In Saudi Arabia women are prohibited from interacting with unrelated males.