The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says first results of explanatory oil drilling will be known in July, according to minister Joe Mizzi.
The Malta Independent says one in five want Manuel Mallia out of the Cabinet, according to a survey of 300 people. Godfrey Farrugia and Anton Refalo are also among the least popular.
In-Nazzjon says a group of Marsaxlokk residents have written to the prime minister saying they were betrayed and used after the government decided to berth a gas tanker in Marsaxlokk Bay.
l-orizzont reports comments by minister Joe Mizzi that oil drilling is a national priority and will start in the coming weeks.
The overseas press
A search and rescue effort has been launched to find a Malaysia Airlines flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing which went missing early today. Xinhua says the flight, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard, was scheduled to land in the Chinese capital at 6:30 a.m. local time but did not arrive.
AFP reports Russia was swept up in patriotic fervour yesterday in anticipation of bringing Crimea back into its territory, with tens of thousands of people thronging Red Square chanting “Crimea is Russia!” as a parliamentary leader declared the peninsula would be welcomed as an “equal subject” of Russia. Ignoring sanctions threats and warnings from the US, leaders of both houses of parliament said they would support a vote by Crimeans to split with Ukraine and join Russia – signaling for the first time that the Kremlin was prepared to annex the strategic region.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has warned US Secretary of State John Kerry against Washington taking “hasty” action or imposing sanctions over Ukraine, in what has escalated into the biggest East-West crisis since the Cold War. RIA Novosty reports that in a telephone call, the two men followed up on their talks in Paris and Rome that had failed to lead to an agreement on how to resolve the situation in Ukraine, where Russian troops have taken effective control of Crimea. The Washington Times quotes a senior US State Department official saying Kerry “underscored the importance of finding a constructive way to resolve the situation diplomatically”.
Meanwhile, Kyiv Post says armed men thought to be pro-Russian, have stormed a Crimea military post and put the barracks under siege. No shots were fired, with Ukrainian troops barricaded inside. All of Ukraine’s military bases in the Crimea that have not yet surrendered to the pro-Russian side are understood to be under siege.
In other news...
Google is celebrating International Women’s Day with a homepage doodle featuring footage of women from around the world. The Daily Telegraph says the search engine’s creative team put together the doodle, which features 27 female chromosomes and a video package with the faces of more than 100 women as well as a musical soundtrack from the Belgian-Congolese vocal group Zap Mama. Others who make an appearance include the President of Lithuania, Dalia Grybauskaitė. The doodle was designed by Google with the intention of providing “a glimpse”
Euronews reports the International Criminal Court has found a Congolese ex-militia boss complicit in war crimes in an attack on a village in the DRC. The trial is the first to feature sexual violence charges. He was acquitted, however, of charges he used child soldiers in the incident. The 35-year-old is to remain in the court’s custody until he is sentenced at a later date.
European Finance Ministers will meet in Brussels on Tuesday in their last attempt to reach a common stand on the proposal for the Single Resolution Mechanism, Banker weekly reports. Chances for reaching agreement are slim. The last ECOFIN meeting was unable to improve its position on the single resolution mechanism and fund. Meanwhile, MEPs think that the European Central Bank (ECB) must be the only authority to decide whether a bank is “falling or likely to fail”.
Mail & Guardian reports how a former girlfriend of Oscar Pistorius said at his murder trial that he once fired his gun out of a car sunroof and later cheated on her with the woman he killed last year. And a security guard recalled the athlete telling him everything was “fine” after neighbours reported gunshots coming from Pistorius’ house on the night of her death. The gripping accounts capped the first week of the televised trial of the double-amputee Olympian, whose chief defence lawyer has tried to sow doubt about the testimony of neighbours who said they heard a woman’s screams before gunshots. Proceedings have also focused on past incidents involving alleged gunplay, part of an apparent prosecution effort to portray Pistorius, 27, as a hothead who sometimes thought he was above authority.
USA Today reports an Ohio couple was convicted on Friday of holding captive a cognitively disabled woman and her young child, who were forced to eat dog food and threatened with a large snake, federal prosecutors said. A jury found Jordie Callahan, 27 and Jessica Hunt, 32, guilty of engaging in labour trafficking, conspiracy and forced labor after a three-week trial in a Youngstown federal court. Authorities became aware of the situation after the victim was caught shoplifting in an attempt to be arrested and escape her capturers. Callahan and Hunt are scheduled to be sentenced in July.