The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press
The Times says three brothers are claiming to have been beaten by a police officer.
The Malta Independent says people living in the streets may become a reality.
In-Nazzjon says salaries have risen by an average of 3.9% in Malta, a faster rate of growth than the EU’s.
l-orizzont says Franco Debono has continued to humiliate the Prime Minister.
The overseas press
Milliyet reports Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced measures against France after the French National Assembly passed a Bill criminalising denial of the 1915-16 Armenian "genocide". Ankara is recalling its ambassador and freezing political visits as well as joint military projects, including exercises. Under the Bill, those publicly denying genocide would face a year in jail and a fine of €45,000.
Reuters reports that Asian stocks edged up on Friday as signs of a strengthening economy in the United States encouraged a modest year-end rally in riskier assets. Wall Street stocks had risen for a third straight day on Thursday after data showed new claims for unemployment benefit dropped to their lowest in three years. The euro increased fractionally.
Il Tempo reports that the Italian Senate has voted overwhelmingly to give final approval to a €30 billion austerity and growth package aimed at eliminating Italy’s budget deficit by 2013 and stimulating the economy as part of a broader plan to stabilise the euro. The package contains budget cuts of €20 billion and growth-boosting measures worth €10 billion as well as raise the retirement age to 66 for men and 62 for women by 2012.
L’Osservatore Romano quotes Pope Benedict saying that Europe's economic crisis stemmed from an "ethical crisis" and people must be encouraged to make sacrifices. The Pope told a traditional Christmas audience of the Rome Curia that individuals and large social groups lacked a "strong motivation" to accept sacrifices and questioned whether it was possible to transform values into a "willingness" to accept sacrifices and concrete imperatives. Benedict said there was a "crisis of faith" in the Catholic Church in Europe and local churches could learn from the vitality of young people in Africa to counter "the exhaustion and boredom of believing".
The Irish Examiner quotes Dublin Archbishop Dr Diarmuid Martin saying 2011 has been a tough year for the Catholic Church in Ireland and a process of renewal and reform was being undertaken following the handling of clerical child abuse incidents. He said the cases would always be a part of the Church and could never be forgotten.
In what observers say is a move towards Palestinian reconciliation, Al Ahram announces that following talks in Cairo, the militant Palestinian group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, is to join the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The move was agreed with its rival Al Fatah which governs the West Bank.
The Sunni vice-president of Iraq, Tariq al-Hashemi has accused the Shite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki of creating a national crisis by issuing an arrest warrant against him. He told the BBC that what Maliki had begun was not easy to control and Iraqis were right to be worried about it. Meanwhile, al-Awsat says a wave of bombs tore through mostly Shiite neighbourhoods of Baghdad, killing at least 69 people and evoking fears that Iraq could dissolve into a new round of sectarian violence. The attacks appeared to be a well-coordinated assault by Sunni militants linked to al-Qaida.
O Globo reports that conjoined twins have been born in Brazil with two heads, two functioning brains and two backbones – but a single heart. The rare condition is thought to have occurred when one of the pair failed to fully develop in the womb. Doctors say separating the twins, named Jesus and Emanuel, is not currently an option because there is only one set of organs.
France 24 reports that according to Reporters Without Borders, 2011 took a heavy toll on the media – both in lives and freedom. It says 66 journalists and five netizens were killed (16 per cent more than in 2010), 171 journalists and 130 netizens imprisoned, 1,044 journalists arrested and 1,959 journalists physically attacked or threatened. For the second year running, Pakistan was the single deadliest country with a total of 10 journalists killed, most of them murdered. China, Iran and Eritrea continue to be the world’s biggest prisons for the media.
Metro reports that Mark Wood is likely to be the most lonely person in the world when he wakes up on Christmas Day to nothing but white in his historic bid to ski to both the North and South Poles to raise awareness to climate change. He has been completing around 27km a day, dragging a sledge through the snow in 20mph winds and temperatures of around minus150C, and by Friday evening should have covered 660km of the 1,095km trip to the South Pole.
Pigeons may be ubiquitous, but they're also brainy, according to a new study that found these birds are on par with primates when it comes to numerical competence. The study, published in the latest issue of the journal Science, discovered that pigeons can discriminate against different amounts of number-like objects, order pairs, and learn abstract mathematical rules. Aside from humans, only rhesus monkeys have exhibited equivalent skills.