The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times says many questions remain on the Sliema double murder.
The Malta Independent highlights comments by Tonio Borg that Malta will release the two Mirage fighter jets back to Libya soon. They were flown to Malta by defecting pilots in February.
In-Nazzjon reports on the appeal for silence instead of uncontrolled speculation over the New Year double homicide. It also reports that the government has given Sliema council 10-day notice to solve its problems, or be dissolved.
l-orizzont asks if the Sliema scene of the crime had been touched. It says some relatives arrived before the police.
The overseas press
Euronews reports that EU member states have agreed in principle to ban imports of Iranian crude oil to put pressure on the country over its nuclear programme. The move is expected to be announced formally at an EU foreign ministers' meeting at the end of January. The US, which recently imposed fresh sanctions on Iran, welcomed the news. The EU currently accounts for around 17 per cent of Iranian oil exports. Oil prices on international markets rose on news of the EU agreement.
Libya’s new military chief of staff has said his first missions are to protect the desert nation’s vast borders and help disarm thousands of former rebels who took part in the overthrow of longtime leader Muammar Gaddafi. Tripoli Post quotes Gen. Youssef Mangoush saying the country’s fledgling military faces huge obstacles, including rebuilding its bases and purchasing new equipment. According to The New York Times, Libya's transitional government expressed growing concern that the country could descend into civil war if its militias were not brought under control. It acknowledges, however, that forging a national army could take months.
The Washington Post says front-running Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney was looking towards the next battle in New Hampshire on Tuesday after managing only the slimmest of victories in Iowa. Just eight votes separated him from former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, who shot from single-digit support in the Mid-western state to become Romney’s strongest competitor for the nomination. The race would play out over the next six months in primary elections and caucuses nationwide before the November election. Meanwhile, Michele Bachmann has quit the Republican presidential campaign, saying she “decided to stand aside” in the wake of her sixth place finish in the Iowa caucuses.
German President Christian Wulff has made it clear that he would not be resigning after it was revealed he tried to suppress the publication of an article in Bild that drew attention to a private home loan scandal. In an interview on ZDF TV, Wulff said that part of the decision to stay in office was due to the support he had received from friends and family. Last month, Wulff came under fire for his lack of transparency regarding a private home loan with the wife of a prominent businessman during his time as state premier in Lower Saxony. Wulff said he had apologized to Bild editor Kai Diekmann for making the phone call, which he described as "a serious mistake".
Clarin reports that President Cristina Fernandez of Argentina was recovering after an operation to remove her cancerous thyroid gland. A spokesman for the president said surgery went without complications and all her vital signs were good. Doctors predicted a complete cure without chemotherapy, since tests showed the cancer had not spread beyond a nodule on the right side of her thyroid gland.
The judge in a racially-charged murder case in London has sentenced the two defendants, Gary Dobson and David Norris, to a minimum of 15 years and two months and 14 years and three months, respectively. The day before, a jury at London's Old Bailey criminal court found the two defendants guilty of the murder of 18-year-old Stephen Lawrence more than 18 years ago. The Daily Mail reports that while sentencing Dobson and Norris, the judge urged Scotland Yard to hunt down the "three or four" others involved in the killing. The i leads on the pledge from the Met Police to continue to pursue other men suspected of involvement in the killing of Lawrence.
The Daily Telegraph reports an British independent Commission on Assisted Dying has concluded that GPs should be able to prescribe lethal doses of medication to allow the dying to take their own lives if they have less than a year to live. The year-long inquiry proposes a legal framework under which patients could choose an assisted suicide. It also sets out safeguards to protect vulnerable people who do not have the mental capacity to make such a choice, or who may be under pressure from friends or relatives.
Cuban state media has responded to the rumor floating around since Monday that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro had died. An article on the state-run Cubandebate website said that the rumour is just that – a rumour. The article accused Twitter of spreading the story by allowing Castro’s name to become a trending topic on the site, even becoming fourth-most popular in the world at one point on Monday night. It dubbed anti-Castro expatriates who had believed the story “necrophiliac counter-revolutionaries”.
Losses from natural disasters totaled €294 billion last year, topping the previous record set in 2005. Börzen Zeitung quotes German reinsurance giant Munich Re saying in its 2011 review of natural disasters that payouts to insurance clients, affected by natural disasters, reached a record, too, as they claimed €81.3 billion in damage compensation, compared with €78 billion in 2011. The world's biggest reinsurer said the earthquake and tsunami in Japan in March alone caused damage claims of between €27 billion to €31 billion. An earthquake in New Zealand in February added a further €10 billion to insurers' payouts for the year.
And if »2011 was a year of historic change, 2012 is the year of elections. CNN reports that 59 countries, or one third of the world’ 193 nations, will vote in local, state or national elections. More than 25 may result in a change in national leadership. Together, these changes could affect 53 per cent of the world's population, representing half of the world's GDP. And a lot of the change is concentrated in the world's most powerful countries. Four out of the five UN Security Council members could see changes at the top. That's Russia, China, France and the US – four countries that represent 40 per cent of the world's GDP.