The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta under the heading ‘Pretty Confusing’, reports how bathers were unaware yesterday that it was still not safe to swim in Pretty Bay. The newspaper then focuses on comments by the prime minister and the leader of the opposition on the Gaffarena expropriation deal.
The Malta Independent says leading Labour academics will not sign Zonqor statement.
In-Nazzjon leads with how funds have run out for the resurfacing of a street in Qala which was dug up before the council elections. It also quotes Simon Busuttil’s comments that corruption has become ‘institutionalised’.
l-orizzont leads with comments by the prime minister that the government will not tolerate a situation where it is undermined by people in sensitive posts who leak information.
The overseas press
Italy has warned of retaliation against the European Union if governments don’t make good on proposals to take in more asylum seekers. Corriere delle Sera quotes Prime Minister Matteo Renzi threatening an unspecified “Plan B” if the EU did not show more solidarity with Italy.
Meanwhile, Euronews reports a stand-off continued between French police and African migrants trying to cross over from the northern Italy. The migrants were refusing to disperse opting to camp out on the nearby rocks. Some local people were giving them food and water.
Cumhuriyet says thousands of Syrians cut through a border fence and crossed over into Turkey yesterday, fleeing intense fighting in northern Syria between Kurdish fighters and jihadis. The flow of refugees came as Syrian Kurdish fighters closed in on the outskirts of a strategic Islamic State-held town on the Turkish border, potentially cutting off a key supply line for the extremists’ nearby de facto capital.
In what could be the first extension of the Washington-led air war against terrorists in Syria and Iraq, the US killed seven leading members of Libya’s Al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Al-Sharia in an airstrike on a farm outside Ajdabiya. Libya Herald reports one of the victims was the Algerian Mokhtar Belmokhtar, former leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb who masterminded the deadly mass hostage-taking at Algeria’s Amenas gas plant in January, 2013.
Greece failed to reach an agreement during yesterday’s latest round of bailout talks with international creditors, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, in Brussels. Sputnik quotes Greek Deputy Prime Minister Yannis Dragasakis saying in a statement that he submitted a new economic reform proposal, but did not get a reply from the international lenders.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi suffered a setback in local elections yesterday as first results show that Venice and Arezzo have gone to the centre-right. AGI says in Venice, the changes came after 22 years when the centre-right candidate Louis Brugnaro garnered more than 53per cent of the votes. In Arezzo, Alessandro Ghinelli won 50.8per cent of the votes.
Mail & Guardian reports a South African court has issued an interim order blocking Sudanese President Omar Bashir from leaving the country, until a judge hears an application for his arrest later today. Bashir, who is in Johannesburg for the African Union summit, is wanted by the International Criminal Court, accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity over atrocities during the Darfur conflict.
Oriental Daily says thousands of people, many holding yellow umbrellas, have marched in Hong Kong to urge lawmakers to vote down Beijing-backed election reforms that sparked huge street protests last year. The turnout was lower than organizers had expected.
The Jerusalem Post leads with the publication yesterday of an Israeli inter-ministerial report on last summer’s operation in Gaza intended to pre-empt the UN Human Right’s Council commission report expected to be released this week. At the start of a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said the UN report was a waste of timeas its conclusions were written before they began investigating.
The European Space Agency says the comet lander Philae has come back to life after hibernating for seven months. Berliner Zeitung says it is the first communication with the probe since it landed with a bounce in November and ended up in the shadow of a cliff instead of in direct sunlight.
A lawyer representing women abused by paedophile Rolf Harris has told the Daily Mirror the disgraced entertainer’s parole should be reviewed in the wake of reports he wrote a “vile” song from his prison cell in Stafford, sickeningly castigating his victims as “money-grabbing” mercenaries intent on claiming compensation.
La Stampa says the scientifically inexplicable healing of a Brazilian from a malignant brain tumour could be the miracle that could lead to the canonisation of Mother Teresa of Calcutta during the Jubilee of Mercy. The specialised site Vaticaninsider says the Congregation for the Causes of Saints is investigating the case of a victim in San Paolo who was healed of “a cancer that had already spread to a large portion of the brain.”
Fox News reports “Jurassic World”, the fourth film in the series, became the highest global opener of all time with a staggering $511.8 million in its first days in the theatres. It has been 14 years since there has been a new “Jurassic” film and the combination of cinematic grandeur, nostalgia and awareness helped “Jurassic World” far surpass analyst predictions going into the weekend, which had the film on track for a $125 million opening.