The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Sunday Times of Malta reports that 80 per cent of the Cafe Premiere's VAT fines were cancelled.
The Malta Independent on Sunday says Ninu Zammit held $3.2m in his secret Swiss account. It also says the money was transferred to the British Virgin Islands when Malta joined the EU to avoid the European Savings Directive.
MaltaToday says that under the former government, Gozo constituents of then minister Giovanna Debono were offered free construction, paid for by the Gozo Ministry. Mrs Debono said this was the first time she had heard this claim.
It-Torca reports that the GWU has ordered a go slow and work-to-rule at Malta Freeport.
Il-Mument describes as 'scandalous' a permit issued by Mepa for the demolition of an old farm owned by Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg.
KullHadd says the PN's strategy for the local council elections has been leaked.
Illum quotes Chris Said, general secretary of the PN, saying the local elections are an important test for the party.
The overseas press
Most of the international media leads with the Nigerian militant Islamist group Boko Haram’s sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. Al Jazeera reports the pledge to IS came in an Arabic audio message with English subtitles alleged to have come from Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau and posted on Twitter, according to the SITE Intelligence monitoring service. Boko Haram militiamen yesterday again struck Maiduguri, capital of Borno State, killing at least 50 people and wounding 36 others.
al bawaba says Islamic State militants continued their campaign targeting cultural heritage sites in territories they control in northern Iraq, looting and damaging the ancient city of Hatra just a day after bulldozing the historic city of Nimrud. The destruction in Hatra comes as the militant Islamic group fended off an Iraqi army offensive in Saddam Hussein’s hometown and fought pitched battles in eastern Syria in an area populated by predominantly Christian villages.
Toronto Star reports a Canadian special operations soldier, serving in the American-led anti-Isis coalition, has been killed and three others injured in what the Canadian Defense Ministry described as “friendly fire”. Kurdish peshmerga fighters mistook the Canadians’ sport utility vehicle for an Islamic State vehicle. The Canadians were returning to a base at dusk in northern Iraq.
Five people, including a French and a Belgian national, were killed when a masked gunman sprayed bullets in a restaurant popular with foreigners in Mali’s capital early. According to Al-Akhbar , Al Mourabitoun, or The Sentinels, a northern Mali jihadist group allied with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo tried to dispel fears expressed by Frontex that between 500,000 and a million migrants could set off from Libya for Europe through Italy this year. Talking to RAI’s TG1, he said it was important to avoid shooting numbers at random, adding this was “a very delicate moment” of the Libyan affair.
Meanwhile, Morocco’s Le Matrin quotes a spokesman of the Tripoli government announcing the Libyan factions participating in the national dialogue brokered by the UN in Rabat have reached an agreement on the criteria for selection of the new head of the national unity government. UN envoy to Libya Bernardino Leon has confirmed the talks had made “progress both on the formation of the unity government and issues of security.
Sputnik reports Russia’s security service agents have arrested two other men bring to four the suspects held in connection with the murder of opposition politician Boris Nemtsov. Russian news reports later said one of them had served with police troops in Chechnya. As he identified the men held, FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov disclosed little else other than that “necessary investigation activities are currently in progress”.
The Jerusalem Post says a crowd of about 35,000 gathered in the centre of Tel Aviv calling for Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu be replaced in the March 17 national elections. The rally, held under the banner “Israel wants a change”, was addressed by former Mossad chief Meir Dagan who recently criticised Netanyahu’s conduct and called him “the person who has caused the greatest strategic damage to Israel”. Opinion polls show Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud running neck-and-neck with rival Isaac Herzog, head of the centre-left Zionist Union, linked to the Labour Party.
Fox News quotes President Obama says America’s racial history “still casts its long shadow” despite a half-century of progress toward a more perfect union. In Selma, Alabama, Obama joined civil rights marchers of 50 years ago at the bridge where police brutality on “Bloody Sunday” galvanised America’s opposition to racial oppression in the South and hastened passage of historic voting rights for minorities. Thousands from across the US packed the riverside town for commemorations of the March 7, 1965, march.
Saigon Giai Phong says 40 years after the end of the Vietnam war in 1975, about 3,500 children a year are born with deformities attributable to contamination with Agent Orange, the chemical gas used by US military during the conflict. This news was given by Green Cross, an NGO which supports Vietcot (Vietnamese Training Centre for Orthopaedic Technologists), an orthopaedic training centre in Hanoi, where such children are treated and followed.