The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta reports how those who wish to buy Maltese citizenship now have to invest.
The Malta Independent also leads with the changes to the citizenship scheme.
In-Nazzjon says Prime Minister Joseph Muscat remained stubborn on the citizenship scheme.
l-orizzont leads with the bus service reform saying Malta will temporarily have a state bus service.
The overseas press
Euronews reports high winds and heavy rain battered parts of Europe leaving at least two people dead and one man lost at sea off France, and disrupting travel two days from Christmas.
Al Bawaba says the Arab League has confirmed it will take part in next month’s internationally-sponsored peace talks on Syria. The conference, known in diplomatic shorthand as ‘Geneva II’, will start in the Swiss town of Montreux and then move to Geneva.
Italy will rapidly reform its much criticised electoral law, slash bureaucracy and cut taxes in a new coalition pact to be worked out in January. Il Tempo quotes Prime Minister Enrico Letta saying that next year, “the country’s institutions will be completely overhauled”. Letta’s comments at his end-of -year press conference came shortly before lawmakers in Italy’s Senate completed parliamentary approval for the 2014 budget in a confidence vote with 167 votes in favour and 110 against.
Nigeria’s troops have killed over 50 Islamists and destroyed more than 20 vehicles during a massive hunt for fleeing Boko Haram insurgents who attacked an army barracks in a restive northeastern town. Voicde of Nigeria said Boko Haram gunmen stormed the Mohammed Kur Barracks in Bama early Friday, spraying it with bullets before torching the compound.
The New York Times reports UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has recommended to the Security Council that 5,500 more soldiers and 423 extra police be sent to violence-wracked South Sudan to reinforce the UN mission there to about 12,000.
L’Osservatore Romano says Pope Francis visited his predecessor Benedict XVI for an informal Christmas greeting, as the Argentine pontiff prepares to celebrate his first Christmas as leader of the world’s Roman Catholics. Francis met with the 86-year-old Benedict in a former monastery building on a hill inside the Vatican City walls where the pope emeritus has taken up residence following his historic resignation earlier this year. The two men could be seen praying side by side in a chapel inside the residence and chatting amicably on white sofas.
Pravda says President Putin has paid tribute to Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of fabled AK-47 automatic rifle, who died on Monday. He was 94. Kalashnikov designed a weapon that became synonymous with killing on a sometimes indiscriminate scale but was seen in the Soviet Union as a national hero and symbol of Moscow’s proud military past
According to The Seattle Times, a teenage girl has avoided serious injury after her glasses deflected a bullet fired in a drive-by shooting at her Seattle home. The 16-year-old was asleep on her living room couch when shots were fired from a dark-coloured sedan as it passed her house. Several bullets went through the walls of the house and one through the front window, with one of the bullets striking the bridge of the teen's glasses. She suffered only minor injuries and was treated at a local hospital. Police believe the house was targeted in what was likely a gang-related shooting, but the girl was not the intended victim.