Press digest

The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:

The Times quotes Chief Justice Vincent De Gaetano saying the time had come for quality assurance of mediators in separation cases.

The Malta Independent says the government is considering its options if the impasse in the Libya visas issue continues. It also reports that Sandro Chetcuti was accused of the attempted murder of Vince Farrugia.

l-orizzont also features the Chetcuti arraignment. It also reports that a company which was given government aid had delayed re-employing workers so that it would not be obliged to give them the same conditions of work they had before.

In-Nazzjon says the government last year helped 150 companies invest in alternative energy. It also says Joseph Muscat is to go to Australia in May in a trip to raise his profile.

The overseas press:

Público reports that Portugal's parliament has approved an austerity budget aimed at cutting its deficit to the level permitted for countries using the euro currency. The government hopes that by reducing the country's debt it will also restore investor confidence.

The Washington Times says US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has delivered a stinging rebuke to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his government's announcement of new Jewish housing in east Jerusalem, calling it "a deeply negative signal."

Meanwhile, The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel has sealed off the West Bank until midnight tonight to prevent Palestinians from entering the Jewish state amid fears of rioting and civil disorder. Officers also stopped men under the age of 50 from attending Friday prayers at the Al Aqsa mosque compound, which Israelis call the Temple Mount. Palestinians have been angered by Israel's decision to build 1,600 new settler homes on disputed land in East Jerusalem. The Palestinians have suspended renewing peace negotiations until the plans are retracted.

Deutsche Welle reports that the Pope has met the head of the German Catholic Church over a growing paedophile priest scandal, as it was revealed the pontiff once helped a clergyman accused of child sex abuse get housing in a rectory so that he could receive therapy. Six years later, the priest was given a suspended prison sentence for child sex offences. The archdiocese said he still worked in Bavaria, with no known repeat violations. The Pope has called child abuse a "heinous crime" and a "grave sin".

Le Monde says that according to Reporters without Borders, some 60 countries censored public access to the Internet in 2009. The latest study identified 12 "enemies of the Internet", including China, Burma, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Iran. Countries like Australia and South Korea have also stepped up surveillance of the Internet to combat child pornography. Globally some 120 bloggers and dissidents are under arrest for things they wrote on the Internet.

Dawn reports that at least 43 people have been killed and more than 100 injured after at least three consecutive suicide bomb attacks in the Pakistani city of Lahore.

USA Today reveals a US citizen in custody in Yemen as a suspected al-Qaida member had worked at six nuclear plants in the United States. Authorities are investigating what access 26-year-old Sharif Mobley might have had to sensitive areas at the complexes but says labourers like him would not usually be given security-related or sensitive information.

The New York Post says a 50-year-old man flipped out and killed his 51-year-old girlfriend and two other men after walking in on them having a threesome at her Brooklyn apartment. Hours later, the jilted lover admitted to cops he was so furious that he carved up the two men's bodies and dumped them "somewhere" in New Jersey.