The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times and all the other newspapers lead with the announcement that no financial compensation will be given by the Church in the clerical sex abuse cases. The Times also reports that recession panic has gripped global markets.
The Malta Independent reports that Malta and the EU are silent as the US threatens to veto a Palestinian request for recognition in the United Nations.
In-Nazzjon says services at Mater Dei ITU are being provided as normal. It was reacting to a claim that three Maltese patients were moved out to make way for Libyans injured in Sirte.
l-orizzont gives prominence to a picture showing former Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi with Lawrence Gonzi. Baghdadi was yesterday jailed by Tunisia for entering the country illegally.
The overseas press:
Asia Observer reports that Asian stocks fall once again when trading opened on Friday, with some indicies driving towards their worst weekly losses since 2008. South Korea's main Kospi index lost 4.8 per cent, while Australia's ASX shed 1.6 per cent. Japan's Nikkei index is closed for a holiday. In New York, the Dow Jones fell by 3½ per cent on Thursday, after Europe's main indicies lost about five per cent. The Financial Times reported that the FTSE 100 lost more than £64 billion of its value as investors signalled a lack of confidence in the world's ability to recover. The drop was triggered by warnings from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank that the world economic situation was in a dangerous zone.
EU Times says Romania and Bulgaria have been denied membership of Europe’s visa-free Schengen zone. Concerned about the new influx of illegal immigrants into Europe, Finland and the Netherlands objected to the EU’s two newest members joining the bloc’s passport-free travel zone. Romania and Bulgaria, which joined the European Union in 2007, said they had met the technical standards for joining the zone, but the two objectors said that was not enough.
Al Arab quotes forces loyal to Libya’s new government saying they were in full control of Sabha, the biggest city in the south. Anti-Gaddafi fighters packed the streets firing their weapons into the air to celebrate its capture. Two other Gaddafi strongholds, Bani Walid and Sirte were still offering great resistance.
Meanwhile, Al Arabiya says fighters from Misrata said in a statement that they are in control of chemical weapons near Gaddafi's hometown of Sirte. They said they were safeguarding any possible chemical weapons until the arrival of a UN team, which would oversee their transfer. In a southern area, Libyans had found uranium yellowcake, partly refined uranium ore that was left over from the former regime's nuclear programme. The International Atomic Energy Agency has tentatively scheduled safeguard activities at this location once the situation in the country stabilised.
Akhbar Tounes reports that Libya's former prime minister, Al-Baghdadi al-Mahmoudi, has been sent to six months in prison for illegal entry.The prosecution said he was found without a visa as he was trying to flee across the border to Algeria. Libya's transitional government said it would ask Tunisia to send al-Mahmoudi home to face justice for financial corruption and other crimes.
Berliner Zeitung says Pope Benedict has addressed Germany's parliament, warning that politicians must not sacrifice ethics for power. Amid scattered protests outside and a boycott by some lawmakers, Benedict began his first state visit to Germany in a bid to stem the tide of Catholics leaving the church while acknowledging the damage caused by the clerical sex abuse scandal. Some 70,000 enthusiastically cheered the pope as he drove through Berlin's Olympic Stadium for an open-air service. Benedict urged the crowd not to view the church merely "as one of many organizations within a democratic society" but as the source of their salvation.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has told Associated Press that he thought time had not run out for Iran and the US to repair their sour relationship. He said he was open to meeting Obama and this week's UN General Assembly would have been a good time to do that. On his address to the assembly, Ahmadinejad criticised the US, attacked the West, denounced Israel and questioned the Holocaust. His remarks prompted a walkout by diplomats from more than 30 countries, including the US and EU nations.
Afrik News reports that tThe opposition candidate in the Zambia presidential elections, Michael Sata of the Patriotic Front Party, has been declared the winner. He defeated the incumbent, Rupiah Banda, who took office following the death of the previous president in 2008.
El Mercurio says tens of thousands of students and teachers have marched in Chile's capital Santiago in their latest mass demonstration to demand that the government increase spending on public education and improve its quality. Small groups of activists skirmished with police at the end of Thursday's march and some people have been arrested.
San Francisco Chronicle reports that Jaycee Dugard is suing the federal government for failing to monitor the convicted sex offender who kidnapped her on 1991 and held her captive for 18 years, fathering her two children. The complaint filed in the US District Court in San Francisco today says the failures by federal parole officers in the handling of Phillip Garrido’s case are as “outrageous and inexcusable as they are numerous”. Garrido and his wife, Nancy, are in prison after pleading guilty in the case.
Vanguard says Nigeria’s national assembly has called on the police to investigate the apparent gang rape of a woman by five men which was filmed and then circulated on the internet. Assembly members condemned the rape, which is said to have taken place on the university campus.
According to the BBC, an inquiry has been ordered by the international amateur boxing authority into allegations that Azerbaijan was promised two gold medals in 2012 Olympics in return for $10 million. He man accused of organising this called the allegations “preposterous” and “untrue”.