The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Sunday Times reports how a girl may go blind after a contact lens infection.
The Malta Independent on Sunday quotes Nationalist MP Franco Debono saying he saw nothing wrong in having the PAC summon witnesses on the power station extension contract.
MaltaToday says the Prime Minister is to try to persuade Austin Gatt to change his mind about not contesting the election.
It-Torca recalls the Egyptair hijacking 25 years ago this week.
KullHadd says drugs are being sold close to the police station in Cospicua.
Il-Mument leads with the signing of the 10-year bus service agreement with Arriva. It also says that Godfrey Grima has denied being a consultant to Joseph Muscat.
Illum says eight out of every 10 people are unhappy with Arms Ltd.
The overseas press
The Pope has suggested that the use of condoms could be justified in exceptional circumstances such as when a life is at stake. In comments published in the official Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano, Pope Benedict gave the example of male prostitutes when he said using condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS could be seen as an act of moral responsibility. The Pontiff’s statement about condoms is part of Light of the World: The Pope, the Church, and the Sign of the Times, the German journalist Peter Seewald's far-ranging six-hour interview to be published later this year. UNAIDS, the United Nations programme on HIV/Aids, welcomed the comments as a "significant and positive step forward".
CNN reports Nato and Russian have agreed to begin talks immediately on a European missile defence shield, a project first put forward by the United States that has long caused friction. Speaking at the end of a Nato summit in Lisbon, the alliance’s secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Russia had also agreed to allow Nato to transport more supplies to Afghanistan across Russia territory.
The International Herald Tribune says Nato nations have formally agreed to start reducing troop levels in Afghanistan next year and hand over control of security to the Afghans in 2014. But the US and its allies appeared to take conflicting views on when Nato combat operations would end. A senior Obama administration official said the US had not committed to ending its combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014 because it was still unclear what the security needs would be as the 2014 transition proceeds.
Metro says thousands of protesters took to the streets of London to march against the nine-year conflict in Afghanistan. Demonstrators were led by military families as they carried anti-war placards and banners against cuts to government spending, chanting: “When they say warfare, we say welfare”. The British government has stated that Britain’s combat role in Afghanistan would end by 2015.
The Irish Times says the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, one of Ireland’s largest trade unions, has called for a campaign of civil disobedience if the government did not hold a general election. An overwhelming majority of voted in favour of the motion which condemned the Irish government for “its criminal negligence in the management of the economy”. It said that the policy of “economic sabotage” had led to the betrayal of the country and to the loss of the last shreds of Ireland’s economic sovereignty.
The New Zeald Herald reports that gas levels in the West Coast Pike River mine, where 29 miners were trapped, were "coming down", but were still and it was still too dangerous for rescuers to enter. A new shaft is being drilled to allow further tests for dangerous gases.
USA Today quotes President Obama saying he had asked airline officials to see whether there existed less obtrusive tests to screen airline passengers. The US has nearly 400 of the advanced imaging machines deployed at 70 airports, expanding to 1,000 machines next year. The full body scanners show security guards naked images of their bodies.
Al Ahram says eight tourists were killed and 22 other passengers injured in a bus crash on a road along Egypt's Gulf of Suez coast. Three of the dead were Russian nationals and efforts continued to identify the five others.
Radio Zamaneh says two lawyers representing political activists have been released from jail a week after they were detained. The two freed women were among the signatories of an open letter in September calling for the release of prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was arrested last September on suspicion of spreading propaganda against the ruling system.
La Republica reports that a major international conference on tobacco control has adopted recommendations to restrict or ban flavour additives that make cigarettes more appealing to new smokers. At a meeting in Uruguay, delegates of 172 countries signatories of the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, have agreed on guidelines to control the use and sale of tobacco products.
A company that monitors betting on football globally has told the BBC that some 300 matches at the top levels of the European game are fixed each season. The company, Sport Radar, has said it could predict when a game had been fixed because the patterns of betting are out of the ordinary.