The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Italy is on full alert, Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told Lilli Gruber on her programme “8:30” on LA7 TV following the arrest of 10 people members of an Al Qaeda cell suspected of plotting attacks on the Vatican, as well as in Pakistan and Afghanistan. He said, “The alert level is up because obviously Italy, like all western countries, must be careful.” Interior Minister Angelino Alfano told AGI the raid was “an extraordinary operation”, which confirmed Italy was “a great country able to deal with these blows”.
TG.com says the police are looking for eight others. The suspects are accused of terrorist acts abroad, including an attack on the market at Meena Bazaar in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 2009, in which more than 100 people died. They are also accused of smuggling migrants to finance their activities. Some of the illegal immigrants stayed in Italy, while others were moved on to northern Europe. False job contracts were used to circumvent the rules on entry and residence, issued by businessmen willing to turn a blind eye, or the migrants posed as victims of ethnic or religious persecution.
Ansa quotes British government sources saying the Royal Navy’s Bulwark helicopter carrier will reach the southern Mediterranean within a week. The ship will conduct “search and rescue” operations in collaboration with EU border agency Frontex and Italian authorities, but independently of the EU’s Triton border patrol and rescue mission. British Prime Minister David Cameron said Thursday the UK would help rescue people “on condition those saved be taken to the nearest safe country – probably Italy – and that they won’t request asylum in the UK”.
Meanwhile, the Vatican has criticised the EU summit’s final declaration on the migrant crisis, saying it fell short and contained proposals that could endanger lives. In an interview broadcast by the Servizio Informazione Religiosa, Cardinal Antonio Maria Vegliò, who presides the Pontifical Council on Migrants, described Britain’s refusal to host rescued migrants “very egotistical”. “Forward divided” is the headline of the Osservatore Romano which mentions “the steps forward and the internal divisions” in the struggle for a common strategy on immigration.
Euronews reports Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis has hit back at suggestions that eurogroup talks about a new finance package for his country have stalled amid frustrations at his handling of negotiations. He denied suggestions that personal relations between him and the other finance ministers had deteriorated irreparably. Speaking at the end of a meeting of the eurozone’s 19 finance minister in the Latvian capital, Riga, Eurogroup president Jeroen Dijsselbloem said Athens must move faster with economic reforms plans to receive vital new loans.
Sputnik says one of Greece’s largest banks will wipe away the debts and freeze the mortgages of clients who owe up to €20,000 in a move designed to ease the burden on its crisis-hit customers. The Bank of Piraeus, one of the country’s four major banks, decided to write off or restructure debts in response to the “humanitarian crisis” through which its poorest clients were living, the company said in a statement.
With combatants fighting in neighbourhoods and Saudi-led coalition warplanes pounding Iran-backed rebels from the sky, Yemen’s war is wreaking a particularly bloody toll among civilians: more than 550, including 115 children, have been killed in the past month, the UN said yesterday. According to AP, Amnesty International said in a new report that some of the airstrikes it examined in the capital of Sanaa and four other cities raised “concerns about compliance with international law”, saying they appeared to have failed to take precautions to avoid civilian casualties.
A militia alliance that controls Libya’s capital has carried out air strikes against positions of the Islamic State jihadist group in the coastal city of Sirte. An official, who did not want to be named, told AFP the targets included an IS command base. There have been sporadic clashes for about two months between IS and the battalion, tasked by the Tripoli parliament with restoring security in the coastal city.
Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dorman will repeat their roles for the sequel of the film “Fifty Shades of Gray”. According to Hollywood Reporter, a Universal Pictures announced said the films number two three – based on the books “Fifty Shades of Darker” and “Fifty Shades Freed” by E.L. James – would come to the big screen February 10, 2017 and February 9, 2018. “Fifty Shades of Gray”, released last February, grossed $569 million ($525 million) worldwide.