The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta leads with a report on housing affordability saying 2009 was the most 'affordable' for years. It also reports that 120 illegalities were reported after the hunting season was halted.
MaltaToday says there are security concerns over the local Madrassa (Islamic school). It also says that Simon Busuttil is taking his time to pronounce himself on hunting referendum although he appears leaning towards the 'no' vote'.
The Malta Independent says that according to the Home Affairs Ministry, only countries susceptible to terror attacks were invited to a Paris emergency security meeting.
In-Nazzjon leads with a reproduction of the cover of Charlie Hebdo and pictures of the police funerals held in Paris yesterday. It also reports of discrimination in promotions in the ambulance garage.
l-orizzont says the whereabouts of some 2,200 migrants is not known.
The overseas media
Greek police have received an urgent warning from Europol about the possibility of a terrorist attack in European countries, with most likely targets being Belgium, the Netherlands and Britain. According to Skai TV, the terrorist attack is being prepared by four or five Islamists based in Europe. The warning contains the names of suspected terrorists, who are assumed to have accomplices in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Russia.
In an emotional act of defiance, Charlie Hebdo resurrected its irreverent and often provocative newspaper, featuring a caricature of the Prophet Muhammad on the cover that drew immediate criticism and threats of more violence. The newspaper unapologetically skewered other religions as well, and bragged that Sunday’s turnout of more than a million people at the march in Paris to condemn terrorism was larger “than for Mass”.
Euronews reports most French media have reprinted the new cover of Charlie Hebdo, but some international broadcasters and papers have decided not to. These include CNN, the BBC, Al Jazeera, Russia Today, SKY and the New York Times. Some media have used cropped versions of the front page, showing only the top of the image.
Al Azhar, the leading Sunni theological centre based in Cairo, has said the new Charlie Hebdo cartoons “will increase hatred”. AGI quote a centre statement saying the cartoons did not help “peaceful coexistence between peoples” and “hinder the integration of Muslims in society and Western Europe”.
France 24 reports an “alarming” rise in violent anti-Muslim acts across France following last week’s attacks. In a stirring speech to the National Assembly Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France must combat growing anti-Semitism and protect “our Muslim compatriots”. Earlier, a prominent French Muslim group said that more than 50 violent anti-Muslim acts had taken place in the past six days, citing figures from France’s Interior Ministry.
Le Monde says that at an emotionally-charged, special session of France’s National Assembly, deputies held a minute’s silence to remember the victims of last week’s attacks in Paris. They also sang the National Anthem, La Marseillaise.
Meanwhile Berliner Zeitung says thousands of people joined a Muslim community rally against Islamophobia in Berlin, where Chancellor Angela Merkel said her government would do everything in its power to fight intolerance amid a growing anti-Islamic movement in the country. Merkel used the occasion to deliver her strongest condemnation yet of Germany’s new right-wing movement the “Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Occident“, or PEGIDA.
The French satirical weekly Le Canard Enchainé reveals it also received threats on the day following last week’s bloody terror attack on their colleagues at Charlie Hebdo. The paper reports in today’s edition that in an email, someone threatened “Now it’s your turn” and warned that they would tear apart their journalists “with a cleaver”. As a result, security has been increased.
Le Parisien reports police continued their hunt for accomplices in last week’s terror attacks in Paris in which a total of 17 people – excluding the three terrorists – were killed as Al Qaeda issued new threats against France for its foreign policy in the Middle East and central Africa. The police said up to six people belonging to the Islamist terrorist cell alleged to have been behind the attacks were still on the run. On Tuesday security was also stepped up at the 717 Jewish schools across the country.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo were edited out of a picture of Sunday’s Paris march against terror by an ultra-Orthodox Israeli newspaper. The Israeli Haredi daily HaMevaser also took out Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga and managed to crop Federica Mogherini, the EU Foreign Affairs chief, out of shot. The daily newspaper often edits women out of pictures “for reasons of modesty”.
Fox News reports the Islamic State (ISIS) fundamentalist organisation has posted a new video showing a 10-year-old boy shooting two prisoners dead. The director and co-founder of the SITE Intelligence Group, Rita Katz, said, “ISIS has reached new depths of moral depravation”. SITE’s website published a still frame of the video.
In the first papal visit to Sri Lanka in more than 20 years, Pope Francis has called on the country to do more to seek the truth about its years of civil war. Colombo’s Daily Mirror says the pontiff attended an inter-religious meeting in the capital of this Buddhist-majority country, which voted out its wartime leaders only days ago and unexpectedly elected a new president, Maithripala Sirisena. The Pope is on a six-day tour of Asia, which will take him next to the Philippines.
Facebook is putting warning labels on graphic videos that members upload and share with friends, the leading social network said Tuesday. The California-based Internet giant will also prevent potentially shocking or upsetting video clips from popping into News Feeds of members whose profiles say they are younger than 18 years old. Facebook allows children as young as 13 to join.