The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press
Times of Malta follows its story on the use of waste water in irrigation and says tests on food are held once a year.
In-Nazzjon quotes Simon Busuttil says the Labour Party steam rolls over everybody.
l-orizzont and the Malta Independent reports how the Civil Unions Bill will be approved by Parliament today. Times of Malta says the PN is likely to abstain in the vote. Simon Busuttil is expected to explain the Opposition vote in Parliament this evening.
The overseas press
CNN reports the UN Security Council met in an urgent session to discuss the situation in eastern Ukraine at Russia's request. Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin denied Russia was to blame for all Ukrainian misfortunes. The European states have to understand, he said, that the only way to stop the violence was to listen to the East Ukrainians’ interests. The US envoy repeated that the Ukrainian turmoil had been conducted by “Russian troops” not by people unsatisfied with Kiev's policy.
Kyiv Post quotes Ukraine’s interim president Oleksander Turchynov saying a full-scale operation would be launched against pro-Russian militants if they did not leave key buildings they had occupied in several towns and cities in the country’s east.
Izvestia reports Russia may demand that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe refunds its 2014 fee of €22 million paid to finance Russian parliamentarians’ work. The decision follows the council’s decision to deprive Russia of the right to vote until the end of the year due to Moscow’s refusal to cancel the Crimean referendum. The Russian delegation says if Russia did not take part in council’s work on a full scale this expense was unjustified.
China is reportedly planning to deploy its deep sea manned submersible to locate the wreckage of missing Flight MH370. According to The Economic Times, the Chinese authorities are looking to use the vessel known as Jiaolong, or Sea Dragon. In 2012, Jiaolong achieved a record dive depth of more than 7,000 metres in the Pacific’s Mariana Trench.
Libya Herald reports Saadi Gaddafi and Saif al-Islam, two of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi’s sons, are expected to appear in court today, facing charges of corruption and war crimes.
Chilevision says at least 16 people have been killed, 500 houses destroyed and more than 10,000 people have been evacuated from Valparaiso following a vast weekend forest fire that devastated parts of the Chilean port city, as authorities evacuated thousands and sent in aircraft to battle the blaze.
Voice of Nigeria reports suspected Islamist militants have killed at least 60 people in an attack on a village in northeast Nigeria, while a separate attack killed eight people at a teacher training college. Boko Haram, which wants to carve an Islamic state out of Africa’s most populous country, split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims, has 135 killed people between Wednesday and Sunday.
Al Thawra quotes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad saying that the three-year civil war in his country was turning “decisively” in his favour. In a speech at Damascus University, Assad said terrorists seeking to overthrow him were being defeated. More than 150,000 have been killed in the conflict and millions of Syrians have been forced from their homes during the war as the government lost control of swathes of northern and eastern Syria to Islamist rebels and foreign jihadis.
Chicago Tribune reports three people have been killed in shootings a Jewish community centre and elderly home in a Kansas City suburb. The police have taken a suspect into custody over the attacks, describing him as a man in his 70s and not from the local area. Police said they did not have a motive for the shootings, but were not ruling out the possibility that the shootings were a hate crime. The shootings occurred the day before the Jewish holiday Passover.
Fox News says police have accused a Utah woman of killing seven babies she gave birth to over 10 years after they found the tiny bodies stuffed in cardboard boxes in the garage of her former home. Megan Huntsman lived in the Pleasant Grove home until three years ago and was arrested Sunday. Police say the 39-year-old gave birth to the infants from 1996 to 2006. Huntsman was booked into jail on six counts of murder.