The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta reports how the ‘big bang’ reform of the bus service almost three years ago is being seen as a mistake.
The Malta Independent reports that the number of patients in the hospital corridors is growing again.
In-Nazzjon says the social partners expect the government to take up their proposals, not just listen to them.
l-orizzont reports that an electrical short circuit, not sabotage, caused a fire on a bendy bus in August,
The overseas press
The European Commission has not reported an increase in Bulgarian or Rumanian workers to other EU member states. Bulgaria’s Presa daily quotes Jonathan Todd, spokesperson for EU Employment Commissioner Laszlo Andor, stating at a news conference that EU member states had the right to expel citizens of other EU member states, if after staying three months in a foreign country they still had no means of income or pose a threat to the local social system.
Meanwhile, the journal says Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski has rejected allegations by British Prime Minister David Cameron that existing benefit rules for EU workers from eastern Europe were a “monumental mistake”. Cameron announced last month that a British crackdown on “benefit tourism” would begin on January 1 when migrants from the European Union will be banned from claiming unemployment handouts until three months after arrival.
Bulgarian daily Sega reports Cameron will push for a limit on workers from the EU who are willing to work in the UK and will make the reduction of migrants a key priority of his efforts to renegotiate his country’s EU membership. Cameron even hinted that he might impose a veto on new member states’ EU accession, if no stricter restrictions on immigration are introduced. He stated he was against a closer union in the EU but wanted trade and cooperation.
London’s Independent reports French President François Hollande will try to relaunch his foundering presidency in the next 10 days with plans to cut public spending and reduce taxes, especially taxes on jobs and business. In a series of speeches, Mr Hollande will lay out the main lines of a policy to reduce the cost of labour and try to halt the slide in French industry. His new approach is described as an “acceleration” of the timid reforms undertaken since he was elected in 2012.
Ceska Televise says politicians in the Czech Republic have signed an agreement to form a centre-left coalition led by the Social Democrats under Bohuslav Sobotka. It also includes the new political party ANO and the centrist Christian Democrats.
VOA News reports the US Senate has confirmed Janet Yellen as the first woman to lead the Federal Reserve, elevating an advocate of fighting unemployment and a backer of the central bank's efforts to spur the economy with low interest rates and massive bond purchases.
Tribune de Genève says Switzerland's central bank has reported it had lost billions in 2013 as gold prices plunged and therefore could not pay dividends to the Swiss cantons for the first time in more than a century. The Swiss National Bank has been dishing out dividends to the Swiss cantons ever since its creation in 1907, and to the Swiss Confederation since 1991.
Czech authorities are seeking answers over an arms find at the Palestinian mission in Prague, as the body of 56-year-old ambassador Jamal al-Jamal killed by an apparently accidental explosion there was flown home. The Czech CTK agency reports police suggest the explosion was triggered by an anti-theft device inside a safe Jamal was trying to open. Their version of events has been contested by the late diplomat's daughter Rana al-Jamal, who believes her father was murdered.
The US woman terrorist nicknamed “Jihad Jane” has been jailed for 10 years for her part in a plot to kill a Swedish artist who had offended Muslims. USA Today says Colleen LaRose, 50, had used the Jihad name online and agreed to kill the Lars Vilks over his series of drawings depicting the prophet Mohammed as a dog.
France 24 says workers at a Goodyear plant are holding two managers captive in a conference room in a row over the firm’s attempts to close the tyre factory. The bosses were meeting workers at the Amiens plant when farm tyres were rolled in to block the doorway trapping the two men. The workers are demanding more money in exchange for the inevitable loss of their jobs.
A man who pleaded guilty to slapping a crying toddler on a US internal flight has been sentenced to eight months in federal prison. Huffington Post says Joe Rickey Hundley pleaded guilty last October after reaching a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. Atlanta prosecutors say Hundley used a racial slur to refer to the 19-month-old boy, who is black, and hit him under the eye as the flight from Minneapolis descended to the Atlanta airport last February. Prosecutors had recommended six months in prison. The judge said today he imposed a higher sentence in part because of Hundley’s criminal history, which includes a prior assault.