The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta reports that suspicious Mater Dei finances are to be investigated.
The Malta Independent says a minister has defended the CEO of the Malta Tourism Authority after l-orizzont reported he received double payment for transport.The minister said no abuse had been committed.
In-Nazzjon reports how the EU is planning legal action against Malta over the citizenship scheme. It also says that Labour supporters have attacked Marlene Farrugia over her comments on the citizenship scheme.
l-orizzont reports how Justyne Caruana said she had to use an AFM helicopter to travel to the airport to travel on parliamentary business because she had no choice. It also says that an official of Malta Air Traffic Services is to be accused of misappropriation of some €92,000.
The overseas press
Ukrainian opposition leaders have given President Viktor Yanukovich hours “to cease bloodshed in the country”. Ukrainian news agency Unian quotes Arseniy Yatsenyuk saying if there were no developments, they would continue their offensive. According to Vitali Klitschko, the opposition was disappointed that after four hours of talks, the president only agreed to the release of the arrested militants. In the afternoon, the Ukrainian government had raised the possibility of repealing the anti-protest and dissolve parliament.
The Washington Post says the White House was considering imposing sanctions on Ukraine following the violent repression of anti-government demonstrations. Washington believes that riots taking place in the country are the consequence of the government's denial to acknowledge the legitimate protests of its people.
El Pais ays Spain's unemployment rate climbed above 26 percent in the final quarter of 2013, as the eurozone's fourth-largest economy emerged only haltingly from a long, job-wrecking recession.
Pope Francis has called the mother of a young murder victim, Elisa Claps, whose remains were found in a roof nook in 2010 after having gone missing almost two decades prior to the discovery. Sources told Ansa the pontiff spoke to Filomena Iemma on her mobile phone two days ago. He told her both Elisa and her father Antonio Claps, who recently passed away, were in his prayers.
Valérie Trierweiler has strongly denied statements made to Figaro by her lawyer Frederique Giffard, who she said “spoke without knowing and without any mandate from me”. In a statement released in Europe 1 radio, Trierweiler said Giffard was no longer he legal counsel. Giffard had said President François Hollande and Valerie had come to discuss matters following allegations that the president was having an affair with a French actress and that the first lady was sseking to bow out with dignity from an uncomfortable situation.
Times of India says a young woman has been gang raped on the orders of a village council because she fell in love with a man from a different religion. The police said 13 men have been arrested in West Bengal state. The woman told police that the village council ordered her to pay a fine for having an affair with the man. When her family said they were too poor to pay, the council ordered the gang rape.
A judge has ruled that a US man who donated sperm to a lesbian couple after responding to their online ad is the father of a child born to the women and must pay child support. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the Kansas department for children and families filed the case in 2012 seeking to have the man declared the father of a girl born to Jennifer Schreiner in 2009. Marotta argued that he did not intend to be the child’s father and signed a contract waiving his parental rights.
The world-famous Leaning Tower of Pisa was among several Italian monuments that the Sicilian Mafia planned to bomb, mafia informant Gioacchino La Barbera testified at a trial in Palermo. Corriere di Bologna says other targets that had been considered were the Papal basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome, the church of San Giorgio in Velabro in Roma and the Georgofili Academy in Florence. The trial is investigating links between organised crime and the Italian state in the 1990s.
Corriere della Sera reports prosecutors are investigating former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his defence for allegedly paying witnesses to give false testimony at his trial for having sex with an underage prostitute. Among 45 people under investigation in the probe is Moroccan nightclub dancer Karima Mahroug. Several of them admitted in court to receiving monthly payments from Berlusconi of at least €2,500.
City Sentinel says the state of Oklahoma has killed a man on death row using pentobarbital, a barbiturate normally used for euthanasia of animals. Stocks of barbiturates are scarce in the US after European pharmaceutical companies stopped their supply for execution-purposes. Kenneth Hogan, 52, was sentenced to death for stabbing a woman to death in 1988 when he stabbed a woman. Oklahoma state still has 27 other prisoners on death row.