The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports how hostages were killed as two sieges in Paris came to an end.
The Malta Independent, like the other newspapers, reports how the Constitutional Court has given the go-ahead for the referendum on Spring hunting.
In-Nazzjon reports that the new Shadow Cabinet held its first meeting yesterday.
l-orizzont says Richard Cachia Caruana still has a hand at Dar Malta in Brussels.
The overseas press
A top al Qaeda official has pledged further attacks in France, though he stopped short of claiming responsibility for Wednesday’s Charlie Hebdo shooting. RTL reports senior al Qaeda leader Sheikh Harith al-Nadhari released a recording over social media websites denouncing the “filthy” French and calling them “the heads of infidelity who insult the prophets”. He said the gunmen wanted to teach the journalists “a lesson”.
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem Post reports Al-Qaida of the Arabian Peninsula released a video last night with senior leader Harith al Nadhari praising the massacre at Charlie Hebdo. One of the two brothers responsible for the massacre said he received financing by al-Qaida preacher Anwar al Awlaki in Yemen. Cherif Kouachi made the assertion to BFM-TV before his death while holed up inside the building.
Ansa quotes Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi calling for the EU to have its own intelligence agency following the bloodiest attack on French soil in half a century. “We have the common currency and we must also have a common security and intelligence system. Europe must be united against terrorism,” he said. Meanwhile, EU Council president Donald Tusk told The Daily Star in Riga that the bloc’s EU next scheduled summit on February 12 would focus on how to boost anti-terror efforts in Europe.
The New York Times reports a court in Manhattan has sentenced the radical British cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri to life in prison. The court found him guilty on terrorism-related charges, including the 1998 kidnapping of tourists in Yemen.
USA Today says US federal prosecutors are recommending that retired Army Gen. David Petraeus face criminal charges for passing classified information to his former mistress, Paula Broadwell. Petraeus, who resigned as CIA director after news of his affair broke in 2012, has been under investigation since then for passing secret information to Broadwell. She is the author of a biography of Petraeus, titled “All In”.
Cuba has freed 38 opposition activists from prison over the past two days, including a popular hip-hop artist, as part of a deal to improve relations with the United States. Miami Herald reports Cuba’s commitment to free 53 prisoners was a key part of the historic deal announced last month under which the Cuban and US governments agreed to renew diplomatic relations after more than 50 years of hostilities.
AFP says Nigerian forces, backed by air strikes, were engaged in fighting for the town of Baga, seized by Boko Haram last weekend. Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International suggested was the “deadliest massacre'” in the history of Boko Haram. Meanwhile, UN chief Ban Ki-moon has urged the Boko Haram to free the hundreds of kidnapped schoolchildren seized since last April.
The Hindu reports Maithripala Sirisena has been sworn in as Sri Lanka's new president following a bitter election that saw the surprise ousting of leader Mahinda Rajapakse after a decade in power, marked by nepotism and corruption. Sirisena won 51.28 pe rcent of the vote. The 63-year-old seasoned politician and his new Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe both took the oath of office in Colombo’s Independence Square just hours after Rajapaksa conceded defeat.
In an interview with Der Spiegel, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has warned that the crisis in Ukraine could lead to a major war, or even a nuclear war. The 83-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner decried the “loss of trust” between Russia and the West as “catastrophic” and said ties must be “defrosted”. He accused the West and NATO of destroying the structure of European security by expanding its alliance.
Meanwhile, RIA Novosti announced Fitch rating agency has downgraded Russian credit rating from BBB to BBB- citing the fall in oil prices and depreciating rouble as the country’s economic growth rate is expected to fall to four percent. Fitch maintains a negative outlook on Russian sovereign debt.
Victims of the 2013 rail disaster in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, have reached a major financial settlement with the railway that was at the heart of the deadly tragedy. US lawyer Peter Flowers told The Canadian Press that $200 million would be distributed in settlement funds to families of those who died as well as other parties involved in the legal battle.
At least one person was killed and several others were injured in a 123-vehicle pileup along a snowy Michigan highway yesterday that also triggered an explosion on a vehicle carrying fireworks. WJBK-TV reported snow, wind and poor visibility were blamed for the chain reaction of crashes on both sides of Interstate 94, 150 miles east of Chicago.