The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports how Franco Debono yesterday said he will vote against the Budget. In another story, the Chief Justice is quoted as saying that judicial reform is vital, even without pay rises.
The Malta Independent also leads with Franco Debono's announcement that he will vote against the Budget.
In-Nazzjon says the PL wants to censor its own MPs. The PL said yesterday it should be the one to decide who represents it on PBS programmes, not the broadcaster.
l-orizzont says the government has sounded the retreat on its plans to priavtise car parks.
The overseas press
Unemployment in the eurozone has hit a fresh high of 18.2 million in August. Börzen Zeitung quotes the EU statistics agency saying the number of people out of work rose by 34,000, but after the July data was revised upwards, it meant the unemployment rate remained stable at a record high of 11.4 per cent. The highest unemployment rate was recorded in Spain, where 25.1 per cent of the workforce is out of a job, and the lowest of 4.5 per cent was recorded in Austria. Eurostat said that across the wider 27-nation European Union, unemployment rose by 49,000 to 25.5 million people, with the unemployment rate stable at 10.5 per cent. An EU Commission spokesman said the total was "clearly unacceptable".
Georgia's governing party and the opposition have both claimed victory in the country's parliamentary elections. The private Imedi TV channel reports exit polls suggest that the opposition Georgian Dream coalition, led by billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, had a clear lead in votes for party lists. But President Mikheil Saakashvili said his ruling party was winning in the race for the seats decided on a first-past-the-post basis. In the election, 77 out of 150 parliamentary seats were contested in the proportional vote, while the other 73 seats were determined on the first-past-the post basis.
According to Sky News, a five-year-old girl has gone missing from near her home in Wales after she was spotted getting into a light-coloured van that drove off. Hundreds of people in the town of Machynlleth were out searching for April Jones – a search that went on throughout the night.
South China Morning Post says a collision between two passenger boats off Hong Kong has left at least 36 people dead and dozens of others injured. A rescue operation was continuing. One of the boats, which had been hired for a party, was carrying more than 120 people when it collided with a passenger ferry and sank.
The New York Times reports Syria has accused a number of countries backing rebel groups in his country of supporting terrorism. In a speech to the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem singled out the US, France, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar for criticism, saying they had undermined peace efforts, supplying rebel groups with arms and money. Calls for President Bashar al-Assad to step down were, he said, "blatant interference" in Syria's affairs. Meanwhile, Syrian Opposition activists later said an airstrike on a Syrian town near the border with Turkey has killed at least 21 people including eight children.
The Wall Street Journal quotes US Treasury officials saying the falling value of Iran’s currency, the rial, shows the effectiveness of the sanctions imposed on the country because of its nuclear programme. Iranian media reports suggest that on Monday, the rial fell as much as 18 per cent to a record low against the US dollar. Currency exchange sites in the country said it dropped to as much as 35,000 to the dollar – losing 80 per cent of its value since the end of 2011.
President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia has announced he has prostate cancer and will have surgery tomorrow, Wednesday. El Tiempo quotes 61-year-old Santos saying the growth was small and had been detected early. The announcement came a week before the government enters landmark peace talks with Farc rebels to try to end nearly five decades of conflict. He said he would carry on with his duties and has flown to Peru for a summit with Latin American and Arab leaders.
The Daily Telegraph says the daughter of a Hong Kong tycoon who has offered €50 million to any man who could woo her away from her gay partner has said she was not upset with her father. Gigi Chao, 33, said she had been bombarded with marriage proposals – and even nude photographs – from as far as Nigeria after her father offered the bounty. However, it was unlikely that she would be accepting any of the marriage proposals flooding in. Cecil Chao made world headlines when he offered the marriage bounty after learning that his daughter had eloped with her partner to France.