The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports how a bouncer was unanimously acquitted of having caused the death of a bouncer. It also says that Mepa has already fined Enemalta €468,468 over emission level violations.
The Malta Independent says the strong wind lashing Malta is expected to weaken by tonight.
In-Nazzjon quotes the prime minister saying that Malta attracted foreign investment of €500m last year.
l-orizzont leads with a story of how a man threatened to hang a girl in a well unless she had sexual relations with him.
The overseas press
Eurozone finance ministers have given the green light for Greece to receive the first batch of bailout money of up to €35.5 billion to fund a massive debt relief deal with private investors. Euronews reports that the ministers also said Greece has fulfilled the conditions to get approval for the remainder of the €130 billion bailout soon. Earlier, Greece said that investors holding up to 95.7 per cent of debt in private hands would swap their Greek bonds for new ones with a lower face value and better repayment terms.
Radio Free Europe says all 136 members of Croatia's parliament have unanimously ratified an accession treaty with the European Union, paving the way for the country to join the bloc in July next year as planned. Prime Minister Zoran Milanovic told a special parliament session that joining the EU would help Croatia create a stronger and more successful state.
Ansa says that the diplomatic row that broke out between Britain and Italy following a hostage rescue operation in Nigeria has been downplayed in a joint statement from Copenhagen, after British Foreign Secretary William Hague met Italy's Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi. The Italians had been demanding "the utmost clarity" from Britain as to why Italian authorities were not told of the rescue mission which ended with the deaths of Briton Chris McManus and Italian co-worker Franco Lamolinara. Following the meeting, the tone of the statement was far more muted, saying that Hague made clear that there had been a limited opportunity to secure the release of the two hostages whose lives were in imminent and growing danger.
The Daily Mail reports that Saadi Gaddafi, the playboy son of Colonel Gaddafi, has been ordered to hand over his £10 million British mansion to the new Libyan government within two weeks. He had bought the neo-Georgian, eight bedroom home, complete with indoor swimming pool and private cinema, shortly before the start of the Arab Spring uprising in which his father was eventually killed. The British High Court was told that the despot's son had paid for the property by plundering Libyan state oil funds.
Metro says Catholic paedophile priest Alexander Bede Walsh who used his status to prey on young boys for 20 years has been given a 22-year prison sentence. Walsh, 58, was convicted of 21 sexual offences against boys in Coventry, Staffordshire and Warwickshire between 1975 and 1993.
Portuguese police have launched a review of the case of missing girl Madeleine McCann. Jornal de Noticias reports that a team of detectives based in Oporto, in northern Portugal, has been appointed to re-examine the original investigation into her disappearance from the Algarve in 2007. Scotland Yard officers have been carrying out their own review since last May. Madeleine was nearly four when she went missing from her family's holiday flat in Praia da Luz in the Algarve on May 3, 2007 as her parents Kate and Gerry dined with friends nearby. Portuguese detectives, helped by officers from Leicestershire Police, carried out a massive investigation into her disappearance. The official inquiry was formally shelved in July 2008.
The men at Germany's biggest-selling newspaper, Bild, have scrapped its signature front-page topless female model. It proclaimed that yesterday's bare-breasted front-page blonde would be the last of more than 5,000 women who have appeared since 1984. The newspaper says its male staff made the decision on Thursday, when it gave all female employees the day off to mark International Women's Day. But it's hinting the "Bild Girl" may not be totally gone, saying it "wants to be sexy in future too – but in a more modern way, and better-wrapped, inside the paper".