The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta says groundwater in Malta is drying up.
The Malta Independent carries an interview with President George Abela where he says the President should read his own speech at the opening of the legislature.
In-Nazzjon says questions have been raised over a large seizure of cigarettes in Gozo. The seizure was made eight months ago and a minister reportedly intervened for the truck not to be seized.
l-orizzont also leads with Arriva's departure and says the GWU is seeking protection for the workers.
The overseas press
Freed former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky said he planned to engage in civic activity on behalf of democracy in his home country, but not directly in business or politics. Deutsche Welle reports Khodorkovsky said his presidential pardon and release should not be taken as a sign that there were no political prisoners left in Russia. Among others, he mentioned his business partner Platon Lebedev.
Kyiv Post says Ukraine’s opposition has urged pro-EU demonstrators in Kiev to continue their rallies against the government, encouraging the protests to spread across the country by announcing the creation of a new movement. Some 40,000 people had gathered in Kiev’s Independence Square for the fifth Sunday in a row to protest against President Viktor Yanukovich’s decision to ditch a trade deal with the EU in favour of an agreement with Russia.
The Daily Star quotes the International Red Cross reporting that 500,000 people have been injured so far in Syria, emphasising that access to treatment and humanitarian aid is lacking. Magne Barth, who is responsible for Syria, added that there are still millions of refugees and tens of thousands of people under arrest. Recent data provided by the Syrian Human Rights Observatory indicates that 126,000 people have died in the conflict that is devastating the country.
Az Zaman reports Turkish police have clashed with protesters denouncing Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government over a corruption scandal that has led to the arrest of dozens of Erdogan allies, including the sons of three cabinet ministers. Thousands gathered in and around the city’s Kadikov Square to call for the resignation of government ministers implicated in the scandal as 25 other Turkish police chiefs were dismissed on Sunday, bringing the total number of officials fired to 70 in four days.
Al Ahram says an Egyptian court on Sunday sentenced three activists who spearheaded the 2011 uprising against Hosni Mubarak to three years in jail for organising an unlicensed protest. It was the first such verdict against non-Islamist protesters since the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi in July, and was seen by rights groups as part of a widening crackdown on demonstrations by military-installed authorities.
The New York Times reports special envoys from the United States and Nigeria were flying into the capital Juba, following on from a mission by foreign ministers from east Africa and the Horn and after an appeal for an end to the violence from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Fighting has been raging in South Sudan for a week, after President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of attempting a coup. Machar has denied this, and has accused Kiir of carrying out a vicious purge of his rivals.
Toronto Star reports more than 430,000 households in Ontario and Quebec are without electricity after a snow and ice storm moving through eastern Canada snapped power lines, threatening to leave some customers in the dark until Christmas.
Meanwhile, AP says high winds, ice, snow and rain rocked a wide swath of the southeast and roared north Sunday, ripping off roofs, tearing down power lines and leaving at least two people dead. The storm’s northern advance featured sleet and freezing rain, sparking travel advisories across much of New York and New England and knocking out power to about 100,000. Many eastern cities were seeing record high temperatures, 72 degrees in Newark, New Jersey.
New York Daily News reports Justine Sacco, a public relations executive who gained almost instant infamy – and unemployment – for an insensitive tweet about AIDS in Africa, issued an apology Sunday. Sacco was in London on Friday, headed for a vacation in South Africa, when she tweeted “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!” Sacco hopped aboard her flight, the tweet blew up and social media outrage was booming before she even landed. “Words cannot express how sorry I am, and how necessary it is for me to apologize to the people of South Africa, who I have offended due to a needless and careless tweet,” Sacco said in her statement.
Doctors at Duke University Medical Centre have allowed a specially trained terrier named JJ into the operating room with his human handler, seven-year-old Kaelyn “KK” Krawczyk, ABC News reports. JJ reportedly has the ability to warn KK’s parents and doctors when the young girl is going to have a reaction due to a severe form of mastocytosis – a disorder that is caused by the presence of too many mast cells in her body. It was the first time Duke has approved the presence of an animal in an operating room.