The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta follows up the data leak from HSBC Switzerland and says governments had turned a blind eye to what was happening.
Two men have been accused of preparing a terror act to be carried out in Sydney in the name of the Islamic State militant group. ABC reports Australian counter-terrorism police said they believed the men, aged 24 and 25, had been planning to target someone in an imminent deadly attack. A machete, a hunting knife, a homemade “Islamic State” flag, and a propaganda video were seized in the raid.
Il Tempo says Italy’s cabinet has proposed tougher penalties for terrorism with jail sentences of up to six years for anyone found guilty of recruiting fighters and measures to block related web sites. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said after the meeting the bill would allow new penalties for owning explosives, extra surveillance of potential “foreign fighters”, and the person recruited would also be punishable.
As the small Arizona town where Kayla Jean Mueller grew up gathered in grief upon learning that the 26-year-old aid worker had died while in the hands of Islamic State militants, ABC News quotes anti-terrorism sources saying that during her imprisonment she was forced to marry a commander of the Islamic State. Meanwhile, Sky News quotes Pentagon spokesman, Admiral John Kirby saying Mueller and was killed by jihadist Islamic state and not in a Jordanian air strike as claimed by the Sunni militiamen.
In an Associated Press exclusive, it is revealed foreign fighters are streaming into Syria and Iraq in unprecedented numbers to join the Islamic State or other extremist groups, including at least 3,400 from Western nations among 20,000 from around the world.
As the UN refugee agency joined the chorus of voices urging the EU to strengthen its search and rescue capacity in the Mediterranean, Ansa quotes EU Foreign Policy Commissioner Federica Mogherini saying she would convene an extraordinary meeting “to review European policies on immigration”. On Monday, 29 migrants were found frozen to death on board a boat off the southern Italian island of Lampedusa. The influential Catholic weekly magazine Famiglia Cristiana has appealed for a return to Italy’s humanitarian sea search and rescue operation Mare Nostrum to “ avoid further tragedies”.
TASS news agency reports a ceasefire agreement has reportedly been reached for eastern Ukraine as diplomatic efforts intensify ahead of a leaders’ summit in Belarus. Representatives of Russia, Ukraine, pro-Russian rebels and the OSCE security watchdog holding preliminary talks in Minsk are also said to have agreed on a monitoring mechanism and a scheme for the withdrawal of heavy weapons. The leaders of Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France are due to meet in Minsk later today.
Alpha TV announces Greece’s hard-left government has won a vote of confidence ahead of critical EU talks on a temporary loan lifeline. A majority in the 300-seat chamber voted in favour of the government agenda, which includes renegotiating an unpopular EU-IMF bailout and addressing sweeping poverty and unemployment caused by five years of austerity cuts.
Le Soir reports representatives of some 80 Africa and European nations are expected to attend a high-level international conference in Brussels next month to hear an update on the Ebola epidemic and on the success of the medical initiatives. According to the latest WHO estimates, deaths from the epidemic have now exceeded the 9,000 mark.
The European Broadcasting Union has announced Australia would take part in next May’s Eurovision Song Contest finals. Metro says more than 900,000 SBS viewers watched the show last year when Austrian recording artist and stage persona Conchita Wurst won the title in Copenhagen. Australia will be allowed to vote in both semi-finals as well as the final.
CTV News reports high school girls in Japan spend an average of seven hours a day on their mobile phones, with nearly 10 per cent of them putting in at least 15 hours. A new survey has found boys of the same age average just over four hours mobile phone use a day. The poll comes amid growing concern over youngsters getting addicted to their portable technology. Almost 40 per cent of Japanese children above 10 years of age use a mobile phone.
According to France 24, a court in the southern town of Grasse has ordered a clinic where the new-born babies were switched at birth more than 20 years ago, to pay €1.88 million – six times less than what the families had called for. However, the court threw out a suit against doctors and obstetricians.
Women trying for a baby, and those in the first three months of pregnancy, should not drink any alcohol, updated UK guidelines say. The BBC says the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists had previously said a couple of glasses of wine a week were acceptable. But it now says abstinence is the only way to be certain that the baby is not harmed.