The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times and l-orizzont lead with Joseph Muscat’s promise to remove income tax for minimum wage earners.
The Times also says that the Budget’s measures will be frozen if the Budget is not approved, even the revenue measures such as higher duties.
The Malta Independent reports how Malta slipped in the corruption perception index.
In-Nazzjon says Joseph Muscat is promising everything to everyone.
The overseas press
According to Reuters, five people have been killed and 350 injured supporters and opponents of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi threw stones and petrol bombs against each other. Riot police tried to separate the two sides, but failed to halt that fighting that extended from Wednesday into the early morning. Three members of Morsi’s advisory team resigned on Wednesday over the crisis, bringing to six the number of presidential staff who have quit in the row over the decree. A presidential source said Morsi was expected to make a statement later today. His opponents had earlier called on him to address the nation to help calm the streets.
El Pais reports thousands of Spanish doctors and healthcare workers took to the streets of Madrid to protest plans to cut medical spending and privatise hospital services. The Madrid regional government plans to privatise six hospitals and 27 health centres of the 270 in the region. Specialist doctors in Madrid are also on an open-ended strike four days a week to protest the cost-cutting plan.
The Syrian regime has loaded the precursor chemicals for the nerve gas sarin into aerial bombs. NBC News quoted an unnamed US official as saying there was evidence that the bombs, loaded with the chemical weapon, could be dropped on the Syrian people from fighter planes once president Basah al-Assad gives the order. Sarin is a man-made nerve agent which can cause convulsions, respiratory failure and death. The Syrian regime has denied it would ever use chemical weapons against its own people.
De Telegraaf says Four bodies have been recovered from the North Sea off the coast of the Netherlands, after a cargo ship sank when it collided with a container ship. Seven crew members were still missing. The incident occurred in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the North Sea, about 50 kilometres from Europe's biggest port, Rotterdam.
Manila Times reports that the death toll from a typhoon that ravaged the Philippines has climbed to 325 with hundreds more missing, as rescuers battle to reach areas cut off by floods and mudslides. Typhoon Bopha slammed into the southern island of Mindanao on Tuesday, toppling trees and blowing away thousands of homes with 210 kilometres per hour gusts before easing and heading towards the South China Sea.
Newsroom America says US officials said Wednesday they had taken down a global cyberfraud ring and charged six Romanians and one Albanian in a scheme selling non-existent goods on the Web. The Justice Department said the fraudulent scheme netted an estimated $3 million. Arrests were made at the request of the United States in Britain, Canada, the Czech Republic and Romania. Extradition requests are pending.
According to ABC, two disc jockeys from Sydney’s 2DayFM radio station have apologised after impersonating the Queen and Prince Charles in a prank call and getting a London hospital to tell them all about Kate Middleton's condition. The King Edward VII hospital in London acknowledged that the Australian radio station made the hoax call to the hospital in the early hours Tuesday – and that the hospital fell for it. The 30-year-old Duchess of Cambridge is pregnant and is being treated at the hospital for severe morning sickness.
France 24 reports that Italian jockey Frankie Dettori was given a six-month worldwide ban from horse riding on Wednesday for failing a drugs test at a meeting at a French racecourse in September. The drug Dettori tested positive for has not been disclosed but the rider's lawyer has said it was not performance-enhancing. According to reports in the British media, cocaine traces may have caused the positive test.
O Globo says the death has been announced of Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer, who designed some of the 20th Century's most famous modernist buildings, just days short of his 105th birthday. He rose to international fame as the architect of the main government buildings in the futuristic Brazilian capital, Brasilia, inaugurated in 1960. He continued to work on new projects until earlier this year.
An Italian-American from Iowa is the oldest woman in the world. Ansa reports Dina Manfredini, 115 years and 245 days old, moved from second to first place after the death of 116-year-old Besse Cooper in Georgia on Tuesday. Manfredini was born in the northern Italian town of Pievepelago in 1897. She moved to Des Moines in 1920 with her husband Riccardo. She had four children, three of whom are still alive. She was widowed at 67, but the supercentenarian remarried in 2007 at 110. She is the oldest recorded female immigrant ever.
Art Daily says a drawing by Italian Renaissance master Raffaello – “Head of an Apostle” (c. 1519-20) – fetched €36.6 million at a London sale on Wednesday – a record for any work on paper sold at auction and the second most expensive Old Master artwork. The drawing, executed in black chalk, depicts one of the key figures in Raphael's “Transfiguration”, one of the most important Renaissance paintings. The painting was hanged at the artist's head when his body was laid out in his studio following his death in Rome in 1520, aged 37.