The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports how the appointment of a new Vicar General yesterday is expected to kick off a reshuffle at the Curia. It also reports about threats made to a Maltese-Egyptian actor.
The Malta Independent says a report has blasted poor patient care and a bullying culture at a hospital where Barts students study.
In-Nazzjon says residents of St Paul's Bay are suffering the consequences of a council which did not work.
l-orizzont says the Mosta Mayor decided what road works to carry out on the basis of a report by a company in which her husband is involved.
The overseas press
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras struck a conciliatory tone after their first meeting in Berlin but Berliner Zeitung quotes the Greek leader’s host insisted that she was not in a position to ease Greece’s liquidity problems on her own. The two leaders held a news conference after talks at the Chancellery that lasted more than an hour. Both sought to ease the tension insisting that their talks had been productive despite differences on a number of issues.
Meanwhile, according to Frankfurter Rundschau, the European Central Bank (ECB) has said support for Greece’s banks could be restored if talks between the Greek government and its creditors can get back on track.
The European economy will grow faster than expected and prices will start rising at the end of this year, ECB chief Mario Draghi told the European Parliament. Le Soir quotes him as saying this was testament to monetary policy decisions made by the bank, and the member states should continue to implement reforms.
Al bawaba reports the US ambassador to Libya said eight civilians were killed in an air strike near Tripoli yesterday, as the country’s internationally-recognized government pressed on with an assault to recapture the capital it abandoned to a rival faction last year.
Al Ayyam says Israeli Arabs have rejected the apology Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu made for remarks he made during last week’s parliament election that offended members of the community. Netanyahu drew accusations of racism in Israel, especially from its Arab minority, and a White House rebuke when, just a few hours before polling stations were to close across the country, he warned that Arab citizens were voting “in droves”.
Meanwhile, Fox News reports the White House has bluntly warned Israel that its occupation of Palestinian land must end, dismissing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s efforts to take back controversial campaign pledges.
L’Observateur says Moroccan authorities they had dismantled a militant cell planning to create an Islamic State affiliate in the North African kingdom, seizing guns and accusing its members of plotting attacks. The cell, the latest in a string of radical groups Morocco say it has uncovered, operated in several cities including the two largest tourist destinations, Marrakesh and Agadir.
The Huffington Post quotes the London-based International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence reporting that between 100 and 250 Australians have joined Sunni militants in Iraq and Syria. Given Australia’s vast distance from the region and its population of just 24 million, it is “a remarkable number”. The centre estimates that about 100 fighters came from the United States, which has more than 13 times as many people as Australia.
The Washington Post reports the US House of Representatives has overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging President Obama to send lethal weapons to Ukraine to protect its sovereignty in its fight against Russian-backed rebels.
CNN says President Obama weighed in on the upcoming Nigerian elections by calling for a stop to Boko Haram, which he called “a brutal terrorist group that kills innocent men, women and children” and must be stopped. In a video message, he said they had “a historic opportunity to help write the next chapter of Nigeria’s progress by voting in the upcoming elections. Boko Haram has killed more than 13,000 people since 2009, and has kidnapped hundreds more, especially women and children.
Central Daily Times says a four-month police investigation into an alleged gang rape at the University of Virginia that Rolling Stone magazine described in graphic detail produced no evidence of the attack and was stymied by the accuser’s unwillingness to cooperate. The article, titled “A rape on campus” focused on a student identified only as “Jackie” who said she was raped at the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity more than two years earlier.
Mail & Guardian reports a judge in South Africa has convicted Bob Hewitt, a former Grand Slam tennis champion, of raping and sexually assaulting three girls whom he had been coaching. The assaults occurred decades ago, according to the victims who are now grown women. A sentencing hearing was scheduled for April 17.