The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says Home Affairs Ministry officials are to see members of the public in Labour Party Clubs. It also reports that a flat in St Julian’s has been linked to the Lockerbie bombing.
In-Nazzjon leads with a PN statement that Joseph Muscat continues to be stubborn with the residents of Marsaxlokk, who do not want to see a gas tanker berthed permanently in the bay.
The Independent says however that there are no major public concerns over the LNG tanker in Marsaxlokk.
l-orizzont quotes the prime minister saying health with be a top government priority over the coming year.
The overseas press.
Deutsche Welle reports the European Union is preparing fresh sanctions against Russia in response to the ongoing crisis in Crimea. The fresh sanctions – travel bans and freezing of assets – could be formally approved at a summit of EU foreign ministers on March 17.
Die Welt says NATO will deploy AWACS reconnaissance aircraft to overfly Poland and Romania as part of alliance efforts to monitor the crisis in Ukraine. The planes, many of which have their home base in Geilenkirchen, Germany, would come in addition to a recently increased number of NATO F-15 fighter jets patrolling the air over the Baltic States.
VOA News reports that on the diplomatic front, the United States and Europe are trying to force Moscow to engage in bilateral talks, which it so far refuses to do. US Secretary of State John Kerry reportedly turned down an invitation to meet his Russian counterpart until Moscow agrees to direct talks with Kiev’s interim leadership.
Russian has become the official language of the Crimean city of Sevastopol, where Russia’s Black Sea Fleet is based. RIA Novosty says Governor Dmitry Belik signed a resolution saying that the Sevastopol administration was adopting Russian as the official language for all documents in circulation, in conformity with international law, as it was the principal language for most of the city’s population. Up to now, Sevastopol’s official documents were issued in Ukrainian.
In other news...
As the Malaysian authorities extend the search for the Boeing 777 that vanished on Friday night on a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, the two men travelling on stolen passports on the flight have been identified as Iranian nationals. A BBC Persian report quotes an Iranian friend of one of the men, who hosted them in Kuala Lumpur after they arrived from Tehran in the days preceding their flight to Beijing, as saying they had bought the fake passports because they wanted to migrate to Europe. One of the Iranian nationals’ intended final destination was Frankfurt, where his mother lived, while the other wanted to travel to Denmark.
Libya Herald says Libyan government forces have taken control of a tanker that rebels had filled with crude oil worth €21.6 billion which they’d hoped to sell. Authorities said they had stopped the tanker as it attempted to leave the Al-Sidra oil terminal in the eastern port of Ras Lanuf . Blockades remain in place at four other ports and oilfields under rebel control. Meanwhile, the Libyan parliament ordered a special force to be sent to “liberate” rebel-held ports in the east of the country.
Dawn quotes medical sources repoting more than 120 children have died of hunger over the past three months due to a severe drought in the Thar Desert in the south of Pakistan. The news has shaken public opinion, with Judge Tassaduq Hussain Jillani of the Supreme Court in Islamabad telling the country to “bow its head in shame” over the conditions that led to the deaths. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif visited Mithi in Tharparkar district on Monday, where five more children have died of malnutrition recently.
Mail & Guardian says Oscar Pistorius vomited in the dock at his murder trial as he heard graphic details of the injuries sustained by the girlfriend he fatally shot. The testimony of Professor Gert Saayman, the pathologist who performed the autopsy on Reeva Steenkamp’s body, was not broadcast or reported live on Twitter by journalists because of its explicit content under an order from Judge Thokozile Masipa. But journalists were allowed to report the evidence without directly quoting the witness.
Running can stimulate the production of new stem cells, slowing down the aging of the brain and keeping its memory capacity fresh into old age, new research on mice by Italy’s Institute for Cellular Biology suggested on Monday. Ansa quotes research coordinator Stefano Farioli-Vecchioli saying the study had “demolished” one of the dogmas of neurobiology, which said that decline of neurogenesis in adults was irreversible, adding that this laid the basis for more research into fighting neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.