The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Sunday Times of Malta reports how Dom Mintoff personally met Eddie Fenech Adami and told him he was prepared to bring down the Sant government.
The Malta Independent claims that an explosion of an LNG tanker would be equivalent to 50 atomic bombs.
MaltaToday reports that the death of Pietru l-Haqqa means the death of the 1980s bomb-maker.
It-Torca says the former PN government was warned of tampering of smart meters but remained passive.
Il-Mument quotes comments by the prime minister of the Dominican Republic that Henley and Partners control prime ministers.
KullHadd focuses on the smart meter tampering scandal.
Illum says (former minister) Tonio Fenech did not know about the theft of €30m of electricity every year.
The overseas press
Ansa reports President Giorgio Napolitano has wrapped up talks with Italy’s parties aimed at forming a new government. Napolitano did not indicate when he would hand Democratic Party chief Matteo Renzi, 39, the mandate, saying only that the talks had been “intense” and he had pushed them to completion “at maximum speed” in just over a day in order to give the future premier-designate more “time and serenity” to prepare his team and agenda. Renzi, nicknamed Demolition Man for his long-declared wish to “junk” the old guard and overhaul Italy’s political system, is expected to be tapped either today or tomorrow.
The Sunday Times leads with the disclosure that some 250 British-based jihadis who went to train and fight in Syria have now returned home. Senior security officials said the high number of “returnees” – five times the figure that has been previously reported – underlines the growing danger posed by “extremist tourists” going to the war-torn region. The security services are closely monitoring the returnees, who include several veteran hardliners who have fought in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
The Mail on Sunday reports three people have died in new storm carnage across the UK. A freak wave in the English Channel smashed through the window of a cruise ship, killing a pensioner, while a minicab driver died when part of a building fell on her car in Central London. A pregnant woman was also killed in a car crash in South Wales. In Milford on Sea, Hampshire, witnesses spoke of a terrifying scene as hurricane-force winds sent shingle and pebbles whizzing like “bullets and cannon balls” at a restaurant. Around 106,000 homes are without power and more heavy winds and rainfall are expected from Tuesday.
Labour leader Ed Miliband says in an interview with The Observer Britain is sleepwalking towards disaster because of a failure to recognise that climate change is causing the extreme weather that has blighted the country for more than a month. Criticising David Cameron for appearing to backtrack on his commitment to the environmental cause, he called on senior figures in all parties to unite behind the scientific evidence that climate change is a key factor in extreme weather. Failure to do so, he warned, will have catastrophic consequences.
Atlantic storms have also been battering many parts of Europe’s coastal areas with winds of up to 160 kilometres per hour. France 3 produced a report from wet and windy Brittany saying the storms left more than 100,000 homes without electricity, and trains and flights were cancelled. In the coastal village of Saint Guénolé, strong winds of up to 140km per hour left houses and streets covered in foam from the sea. Storms and huge waves have eroded the French Atlantic coast by more than 10 metres in several places. Spain’s TVE says that in Galicia, incessant rains have pushed dams to 90 percent of their capacity and several have burst their banks. Portugal’s RTP also reported relentless rain caused major rivers to overflow and some communities have been completely cut off by water.
Japan Times reports heavy snow continuous to frost eastern Japan, leaving at least six people dead and more than 1,000 injured and rewriting snowfall records in several cities. Tokyo received 27 cm of snow as of Saturday morning, the fourth-largest amount in the post-war period and rivalling the amount logged just a week ago. The snow is disrupting travel and causing transport accidents across the country.
More than 100 cities in Brazil are rationing water amid the worst drought to hit the country in decades. Folha de Saõ Paulo reports water is being rationed for close to six million people living in 142 cities in 11 states. Reservoirs, rivers and streams are the driest they’ve been in 20 years.
Global News says both Britain and France have blamed the Syrian regime for the collapse of the Geneva peace talks and President Obama is considering new ways to put pressure on President Assad. He said that he did not expect the conflict to be resolved in the near future, and that he would take immediate steps to bolster humanitarian aid.
Meanwhile, Al-Arabiya quotes the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saying the number of dead since the Syrian conflict began has risen to over 140,000. The number of people known to have been killed between March 18, 2011 and February 14, 2014 stood at 140,041, over half of whom (71,141) were civilians. These included 7,626 children and 5,064 women.
Deutsche Welle reports Chancellor Angela Merkel has voiced enthusiasm for a secure European network in light of concern about US mass data surveillance. The idea would be to circumvent the need for data to be transferred across the Atlantic. Merkel said yesterday she planned to discuss the idea of a regional network with French President Franois Hollande when the pair meet on Wednesday. In her weekly video podcast, Merkel said she did not approve of companies like Facebook and Google basing their operations in countries where data protection was compromised.