The following are the to stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says a 34-year-old Eritrean single mother is to be charged with child neglect after leaving her baby girl unattended for more than an hour in a locked car in Marsa. In another story, the newspaper says former police commissioner Peter Paul Zammit had dropped disciplinary action against two CID inspectors, who were blamed by an internal inquiry for a blunder that led to the imprisonment on an innocent man.
The Malta Independent says no cases concerning the origins of money or other assets repatriated under government tax amnesties have ever been referred to the police since the very first amnesty was launched in 2002.
In-Nazzjon says the police were waiting to speak to Matthew Dingli, who was brought to Malta in a critical condition after he was injured in Libya, and were not excluding anything theories in the meantime.
L-Orizzont says that the chamber where Parliament currently meets at the Palace in Valletta is to be used for European ministers meetings in two years time.
International news
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told the NRG website that as long as he remains the country’s leader there would be no Palestinian state. Arutz Sheva reports over 10,000 polling stations have opened where almost six million Israelis would cast their votes to decide whether Netanyahu makes history by becoming one of the longest-serving prime ministers after David Ben Gurion or whether he would become history himself by losing to Zionist Union leaders Isaac Herzog and Tzipi Livni.
Meanwhile, Ynet says that in a move designed to increase the odds of Herzog’s success, Livni announced she was prepared to give up alternating with him to the post of prime minister.
Reuters reports more than 45,000 Russian troops as well as war planes and submarines started military exercises across much of the country yesterday in one of the Kremlin’s biggest shows of force since its ties with the West plunged to Cold War-lows. President Vladimir Putin called the Navy’s Northern Fleet to full combat readiness in exercises in Russia’s Arctic North apparently aimed at dwarfing military drills in neighbouring Norway, a Nato member.
Sputnik International says President Putin made his first public appearance in 10 days – an absence that had fuelled speculation over his health. He met with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atanbayev at the Constantine Palace outside St Petersburg, commenting life “would be boring without gossip”.
The European Union is “ready to increase its support” to Libya as soon as the parties have reached an agreement on a national unity government and the security measures. Le Soir reports the union’s foreign policy chief Frederica Mogherini was asked by EU foreign ministers to submit proposals on possible activities in support of the security measures in the country.
According to Al Ahram, 14 people, including Mohammed Badie, the leader of the banned Muslim Brotherhood, have been sentenced to death. The case is rooted in violence that swept Egypt after the military-led ousting of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
AGI reports the Islamic State militants have published on the net some pictures taken in Nineveh province in northern Iraq, which show the removal of crosses and sacred symbols, replacing them with the black flag of the self-caliphate. They show the destruction of the monastery of St George, near Mosul, and statues of the Virgin Mary and Jesus thrown to the ground and with the faces destroyed. Another shot shows the removal of a cross from a grave.
Meanwhile, Metro says a Chechen woman living in the Netherlands has taken her two young children against their father's will to join Islamic State militants in Syria. Dutch prosecutors said the mother, a boy aged eight and a seven-year-old girl are believed to have travelled using false passports. The divorced father, a Dutchman, had warned the authorities of their imminent departure.
Radio Nigeria reports government forces have regained control of the city Bama in Borno state which fell into the hands of Boko Haram last September. The Defence Ministry said the take-over operation started last week.
Dawn says priests, nuns and lay members of the Christian community took to the streets in different cities of Pakistan to protest against the terrorist attacks which have caused 16 deaths and injured 90 in two churches in Lahore. Pakistani media reports, which could not be confirmed, indicated a protester died in an accident in the district of Youhanabad.
The UN human rights investigator for North Korea, Marzuki Darusman, has told Reuters he would investigate allegations of an estimated 20,000 North Koreans working in slave-like conditions abroad, mainly in China, Russia and the Middle East. The Seoul-based rights group NK Watch put the number at more than 100,000 workers in 40 countries and said they earned $3 billion annually in foreign currency for the Pyongyang government.
Fox News reports wealthy eccentric Robert Durst agreed yesterday to be extradited to Los Angeles to face a murder charge in the shooting 15 years ago of a mobster’s daughter who acted as his spokeswoman. The heir to a New York real estate fortune shuffled into a New Orleans courtroom, turned to the gallery and smiled, then appeared to fall asleep. Later, he answered “yes” to a judge’s questions about waiving extradition.
The Times says Prince Harry has announced he is to leave the British army after 10 years’ service that has seen him fight twice on the front line in Afghanistan. The 30-year-old said it had been a “really tough decision” to end his military service in June, but added that he was looking forward to the next chapter in his life.
Japan Today reports a 43-year-old Japanese woman stands charged with the attempted murder of her 31-year-old husband after she suspected he had a lover because he forgot to “repay” her Valentine Day’s present by giving her white chocolate on March 14 or “White Day”. She tried to choke him with his tie. Celebrated in Japan since 1978, it is tradition that on White Day males give their lovers gifts that are two or three times more expensive than that of the woman received on Valentine’s Day – usually sweets, jewellery, lingerie and stuffed animals.