The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta reports how a shaken baby was left with permanent brain damage. It also says that Beppe Fenech Adami will be a candidate in the PN deputy leader election.
The Malta Independent says that is no clear evidence against John Dalli, but he has not yet been exonerated.
In-Nazzjon says Evarist Bartolo has apologised over the way the ETC board was announced. Yesterday the newspaper said the former chairman learned of her replacement through the media. The newspaper also says that the ‘feast’ of Labour appointments to public boards is continuing.
l-orizzont quotes GWU general secretary Tony Zarb calling for urgent legislation against precarious work. It also reports how a consultation will be held on City Gate.
The overseas press
Ansa reports Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta’s left-right coalition has easily won a vote of confidence in the House of Representatives with 453 lawmakers voting yes, 153 registering a no and 17 abstaining. Earlier, Letta drew a standing ovation as he vowed to act fast to reverse an austerity policy he said was killing Italy. He also promised results within 18 months or he would “take the consequences”. The acting head of the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) is expected to win another confidence vote in the Senate today.
Amsterdam prepares to paint the town orange ahead of the enthronement of king Willem-Alexander, with millions across The Netherlands geared up to say farewell to a much-adored queen after 33 years. NRC Handelsblad says Willem-Alexander, 46,will be invested as the first Dutch king in more than 120 years following the abdication of his mother, Queen Beatrix, 75, earlier in the day. The outgoing queen paid homage to her son, his wife, and her late husband prince Claus in her emotional final address to the nation on prime-time television late Monday.
Radio Praha reports as many as 40 people are reported to have been injured in an explosion in the Czech capital Prague. Police have said they are not sure what caused the blast but it was likely to have been a gas explosion. Police evacuated people from nearby buildings and closed a wide area around the explosion site. Windows in buildings located hundreds of yard from the blast were shattered, including some in the nearby National Theatre.
Police investigating the Boston Marathon blasts have found female DNA on one of the bombs, probably from a store clerk who handled materials used in the bombs, or a stray hair that ended up in the bomb. News of the female DNA being found was reported by The Wall Street Journal, which also claimed that investigators were seeking a DNA sample from Katherine Russell, the widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the elder of the two brothers suspected of being behind the attack earlier this month.
The Washington Post says the US has reinforced medical staff at its detention centre at Guantanamo Bay to handle the expanding hunger strike by prisoners. A military spokesman said about 40 nurses and medical staff were sent to the centre in Cuba at the weekend. He said 100 of the 166 detainees were now on hunger strike.
According to Dhaka’s Daily Star, a Bangladesh court on Monday gave police 15 days to interrogate the owner of a building that collapsed last week, killing at least 382 people, as rescuers used heavy machinery to cut through the destroyed structure after giving up hopes of finding any more survivors. Mohammed Sohel Rana, who was arrested Sunday as he tried to flee to India, will be held for questioning on charges of negligence, illegal construction and forcing workers to join work. His father, Abdul Khaleque, was also arrested on suspicion of aiding Rana to force people to work in a dangerous building.
London’s Independent has a story on the new police investigation into fresh allegations of historic child abuse at 18 care homes in North Wales, between 1963 and 1992. The inquiry has uncovered a “systemic and serious sexual and physical abuse” spanning nearly three decades. Operation Pallial is now investigating 140 allegations related to 18 care homes, including 76 completely new complaints, when previously it focused on three or four establishments.
According to Deutsche Welle, EU member states yesterday remained divided on a moratorium to ban three pesticides considered harmful to bees. Despite their reservations, the European Commission supported the slim margin of 15 states that favoured the measures. European Commissioner for Health Tonio Borg pledged to do his utmost to ensure that bees, “so vital to our ecosystem and which contribute over €22 billion annually to European agriculture”, are protected.
RTT News says an EU-led court in Kosovo has convicted and sentenced five doctors to prison terms ranging from three to eight years, after finding them guilty of trafficking in human kidneys taken from poor donors in 2008 duped into selling their organs for small amounts. The court earlier heard that although the donors were promised €15,000 in exchange for their kidneys, some of them never received any money. The court also heard that the extracted organs were later sold to wealthy patients, mainly from Israel, for up to €100,000 each.
CNN says lawyers for Michael Jackson's mother have accused concert promoter AEG Live of contributing to his premature death in the opening salvo of what promises to a lengthy, celebrity-packed trial in Los Angeles. The family argues that the company was liable as it hired and supervised the doctor whose administration of a powerful anaesthetic led to the singer’s death. Jackson died in Los Angeles in July 2009, aged 50. His physician, Conrad Murray, was convicted in 2011 of involuntary manslaughter for giving Jackson the surgical anaesthetic propofol as a sleep aid.