Press digest

The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:

The Times leads with the Fitch country report which confirmed Malta’s rating but warned against slippage. It also says that the Imam in Malta resisted the holding of protests in Malta against a film which is offensive to Islam.

The Malta Independent reports how a woman was found dead in Mgarr yesterday. It also says that a six-goal spree by Valletta against Hamrun has raised eyebrows.

MaltaToday says Malta has been accused of ‘terrorising’ the foreign press. The claim was made by the New Europe website after the prime minister and the Resources Minister on July 31 took the site to court for carrying an interview which implied corruption.

In-Nazzjon says Joseph Muscat is contradicting himself about the minimum wage and the living wage.

l-orizzont says an extension to Addolorata Cemetery has not taken place, 14 years after it was promised.

The overseas press

VOA reports President Barack Obama has urged world leaders to speak out forcefully against violence and extremism, saying the world could only make progress by pursuing tolerance and freedom. Addressing the UN General Assembly, the US leader denounced the violence which followed the release of an internet film mocking Prophet Muhammad. He described the video as “crude and disgusting” and underlined the US government had nothing to do with it. Obama challenged the international community to confront the root causes of turmoil in the Middle East. He warned the time of diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear programme was not unlimited and he condemned Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, saying the future must not belong to a dictator who “massacres his people, tortures children and shoots rockets at apartment buildings”.

France 24 says that in his first address to the UN General Assembly, President François Hollande of France said the government of President Assad had no future and France would recognise an opposition government once one was formed. Hollande also slammed the UN Security Council for its inertia on the issue.

The New York Times reports UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon opened the weeklong proceedings, telling leaders they are meeting at a time of “turmoil, transition and transformation” and urging them to use their voices to lower tensions, not raise them. Ban described the conflict in Syria as "a regional calamity, with global ramifications". The UN chief also broadened the concern to a host of other global issues, cautioning against a spread of inequality, climate change and emerging and ongoing conflicts in places like the Middle East, Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Somalia, Libya, Sudan and South Sudan.

Newsday quotes Human Rights Watch saying the Syrian government was using sexual violence to degrade and humiliate rebel prisoners. Former detainees have given graphic details of the torture and rape of both male and female activists arrested by the Syrian authorities.

Al-Watan, an Egyptian secular daily newspaper, has published 13 cartoons in a campaign against the obscene cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad published by the French magazine, Charlie Hebdo. The two-page spread of cartoons was published as part of a 12-page dedicated section in Monday's responding to Charlie Hebdo. The section also included articles by well-known secular writers and prominent Egyptian Islamic scholars and preachers.

Kathimerini reports trade unions in Greece have called the first general strike since the conservative-led coalition government came to power in June. Today’s 24-hour walkout is to protest at new planned spending cuts of more than €11.5 billion – a pre-condition to Greece receiving its next tranche of bailout funds, without which the country could face bankruptcy in weeks. Large anti-austerity demonstrations are also planned.

El Pais says riot police in Madrid have fired rubber bullets and used batons against thousands of protesters who tried to march on the parliament building. They were protesting over the government’s strict austerity programme. The demonstrators have called on the government to resign. The finance minister is expected to present even deeper cuts in wages and government services when announcing the 2013 budget next Thursday.

Hurriyet Daily News says at least six members of the Turkish security forces and a civilian have been killed in the city of Tunceli. Police say their armoured truck was blown up when it passed another vehicle packed with explosives.

Ansa reports that Polish troops on patrol in southern Afghanistan, checking the safety of a route near their military base, have found an abandoned newborn baby. The entire column took the towel-wrapped girl to a medical centre at the base, and soldiers were sent to buy baby formula, a bottle and a bib. The troops named the girl Pola, after Poland, and planned to hand her to the Afghan authorities.