The following are the top stories in the international and national newspapers today.
Times of Malta quotes legal experts saying that revoking oil trader George Farrugia’s pardon risks complicating matters for the police in pending court cases against former Enemalta officials. In another story, it says the Animal Welfare Department has a backlog of over 300 reports of animal abuse that have not yet been investigated.
The Malta Independent says the authorities will not be requesting Interpol to issue an international arrest warrant against pardoned oil trader George Farrugia.
L-Orizzont says the police have reopened their investigation into the oil procurement scandal after new information was uncovered last Sunday.
In-Nazzjon says the Nationalist Party has launched a ‘fuel robbery calculator’ for consumers to calculate how much extra they were paying extra each time they filled their fuel tanks at petrol stations.
International news
While firmly upholding the Church’s teaching banning contraception, Pope Francis said yesterday that Catholics don’t have to breed “like rabbits” and should instead practice “responsible parenting”. The Vatican Radio reports that speaking to reporters on his way home from the Philippines, Pope Francis said there were plenty of church-approved ways to regulate birth. But he said most importantly, no outside institution should impose its views on regulating family size. The pope went on to decry the extremes of great poverty and great wealth and corruption.
Deutsche Welle reveals the EU is reaching out to the governments in Muslim nations in an effort to join forces in the battle against terrorism. The new push comes in light of the deadly terrorist attacks in Paris and a foiled plot in Belgium. Following yesterday’s meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said the EU planned to move quickly to implement measures to increase cooperation with countries in the Arab world, as well as Turkey. The ministers confirmed there was a “serious” terror threat to the whole of Europe.
Meanwhile, Interfax reports some 800,000 people have marched through the Chechen capital to protest against the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo. Demonstrators in Grozny, capital of the predominantly Muslim region in southern Russia, released balloons and carried posters that read “Hands off our beloved prophet”. Some 15,000 people joined a similar anti-Charlie Hebdo demonstration on Saturday in the neighbouring region of Ingushetia.
The Independent says Canadian Special Forces have fired on Islamic State militants in what is believed to be the first public ground battle in Iraq between Western troops and Isis. The Canadian soldiers were visiting frontline positions alongside Kurdish forces last week when they came under mortar and machine gun fire. Brigadier General Michael Rouleau said that while Canadian soldiers were not participating in active combat, they had the right to retaliate if fired upon.
Meanwhile, Ansa reports that 13 Iraqi boys, captured by jihadists in the ISIS-controlled district of al-Yarmuk, in Mosul, were shot dead in public because they had watched a football match on TV and cheered their national team as it won its match against Jordan (1-0) in the Asian Cup competition being played in Australia. The killings took place January 12, but the news emerged in Washington only last night.
According to O Globo, the Argentine government has said there was no indication that anybody else was involved in the death of a prosecutor who had accused President Cristina Fernandez of shielding Iranian suspects in the nation’s deadliest terror attack. Alberto Nisman, who had been investigating the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people, was found in the bathroom of his apartment late on Sunday, hours before he was to testify in a Congressional hearing about the case.
Abrar says rush-hour passengers in the busy Teheran metro system have brushed shoulders with a surprising commuter – President Hassan Rouhani. Along with Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and others in his government, Rouhani took public transport to work as part of their effort to mark National Clean Air Day. Tehran has a population of 12 million people and suffers from heavy pollution.
LBC reports a man has admitted decapitating his wife when he appeared at the Old Bailey. Naveed Ahmed (41) had initially denied the murder of mother of two Tahira Ahmed (38) at their home in Merton Avenue in Northolt, west London, on May 27 last year. But at a brief hearing yesterday, he pleaded to guilty to murder. The facts of the case were not opened and the judge adjourned sentencing to January 28.
The New York Daily News says a 22-year-old woman accused of setting fire to her newborn baby girl in the middle of a road has been charged with murder. Burlington County prosecutors said Hyphernkemberly tried to flee after starting the fire but was detained by residents. The child was reportedly alive and breathing at the time she was flown to a hospital in Philadelphia but she died about two hours later.
The BBC announces the death of Coronation Street actress Anne Kirkbride, who played Deirdre Barlow, aged 60. Deirdre was a household name having spent spent 44 years on the ITV soap. Coronation Street was launched in 1960 and is the longest running in the UK, attracting 26.6 million viewers at its peak in 1987.
The Examiner quotes a study by the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (Elsa) which shows couples are more likely to give up smoking, visit the gym, or lose weight if they get healthy together. Scientists looked at 3,722 couples, either married or living together, who were enrolled with Elsa.