The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports how architects mistakenly revealed plans for Gozo while the adjudication of bids for the Gozo ferry terminal and marina are still under way.
In-Nazzjon says the government has again been challenged to drop its plans for Zonqor. It also says the inquiry about alleged weak concrete at the hospital is not meant to unveil the truth but to use the matter as a political issue.
l-orizzont says the Gozo ‘works for votes’ contractor has claimed that Opposition leader Simon Busuttil is trying to influence him.
The Malta Independent reports that the government has told the European Commission that the gas tanker berthed in Marsaxlokk Bay poses no risks.
The overseas press
Metro reports Sepp Blatter has rejected demands to resign as FIFA president after his officials were accused of corruption. Blatter is expected to win today’s polls against Prince Ali bin al-Hussein of Jordan, but UEFA President Michele Platini, who is desperately trying to lobby for Prince al-Hussein, said 45 or 46 of his group’s members would vote for the Jordanian.
Sputnik says President Putin has accused the United States of meddling in the affairs of soccer’s governing body and hinted that its corruption investigation is part of an attempt to take the 2018 World Cup away from his country. Putin said in televised comments that he found it “odd” that the FIFA probe was launched at the request of US officials for crimes which do not involve its citizens and did not happen in the United States.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella has made an impassioned plea for a united, cohesive, integrated Europe. Ansa reports the former Constitutional Court judge said fleeing from new challenges such as the migrant emergency would be nothing but “childish” and “inadequate”.
Le Monde reports President François Hollande has said France wanted Britain to remain in the European Union. The statement came after talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron, who insisted the status quo in Europe was “not good enough”. Cameron said that his priority was to reform the EU to make it more competitive and address the concerns of the British people.
Greece’s exit from the eurozone is a possibility but would not signify an end to the single currency, IMF Chief Christine Lagarde told the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She also rejected Athens’ assertion that a deal with its creditors was imminent.
La Sicilia says more than 740 migrants who set sail from Libya were rescued in the Mediterranean in a rescue operation coordinated by the Italian coastguard and carried out with the help of German, Irish and British naval vessels under the auspices of the EU’s Frontex border control agency. The migrants were trying to cross the Mediterranean Sea on six boats – five of them inflatable vessels.
Meanwhile, Bangkok Times says representatives from 17 nations are meeting in Thailand for talks on Southeast Asia’s migrant crisis which has seen thousands of desperate people flee on boats across the Bay of Bengal aiming for Malaysia and Indonesia. More than 3,500 starving migrants have since arrived on Thai, Malaysian and Indonesian soil.
The Wall Street Journal reveals former US House of Representatives speaker Dennis Hastert has been indicted on federal charges, including lying to the FBI. The charges relate to an alleged effort to hide $3.5 million in payments to a person to conceal past misconduct.
France 24 says a French court has found eight people guilty of exploiting 92-year-old L’Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt. Among those convicted was photographer François-Marie Banier, given three years in prison and ordered to pay €158 million in damages. But a former ally of ex-President Nicolas Sarkozy was acquitted.
According to The New Yorker, a wealthy New York socialite was sentenced to 18 years in prison after being convicted of killing her young autistic son at a luxury Manhattan hotel room in 2010. Gigi Jordan, 54, was convicted of first-degree manslaughter in November after admitting that she administered an overdose of prescription pills to eight-year-old Jude Mirra, using a crusher and syringe
Le Parisien reports a Frenchwoman who kept her boyfriend as a “domestic slave”, forcing him to ingest sponges and window cleaner, has been sentenced to three years in prison, half of which was suspended. Zakia Medkour, 43, was also ordered to pay €200,000 in damages to her ex-boyfriend Maxime Gaget, 37. For over a year he suffered beatings and insults. During the trial Medkour tearfully apologised to her former boyfriend, saying she was “not heartless”.
Bosses who use Facebook to spy on their employees at work are not breaking the law, Italy’s Supreme Court has ruled. La Stampa says the court ruling found in favour of a print firm in the central Abruzzo region which fired a worker when it caught him chatting on Facebook with a woman whose fake profile had been set up by his boss. The sacked employee had spent 15 minutes chatting with the woman on his mobile using the Facebook Messenger app, failing meanwhile to fix a jam that had occurred in the printing works.