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

The Sunday Times of Malta says Simon Busuttil will lead the PN. It also says a woman was trapped in her sinking car for 30 minutes.

The Malta Independent on Sunday says 50.3% support was enough for Simon Busuttil to secure the PN leadership.

MaltaToday says Busuttil is the next PN leader.

It-Torca reports about an €8m' gift' to BWSC

Il-Mument also leads with Simon Busuttil's success yesterday and the address by Lawrence Gonzi.

Illum says Renzo Piano had told the former administration that more could be done with €80 million

KullHadd says PN employees are in a precarious situation.

The overseas press

European Commission chief José Manuel Barroso has defended German Chancellor Angela Merkel against critics who said the austerity imposed by Berlin had deepened the European economic crisis. In an interview with German newspaper Welt am Sonntag. Barros said that what was happening in France or in Portugal was not the fault of Mrs Merkel or of Germany or the European Union. “They are the result of excessive spending policies, of lack of competitiveness and irresponsible action by the financial markets,” he said.

A record number of Czech citizens are against the introduction of the euro in the country, RIA Novosti reports. According to a survey, 77 per cent of Czechs are against the possibility Czech koruna to be replaced by the single currency. Only four per cent support the introduction of the euro.

London’s The Sunday Times leads with the arrest of 55-year-old House of Commons Deputy Speaker Nigel Evans on suspicion of gay rape and sexual assault of two men in their 20s. The offences are alleged to have been committed in Pendleton between July 2009 and March 2013. In December 2010 he came out as gay in an interview with the Mail on Sunday newspaper in which he said that he was "tired of living a lie".

New Strait Times reports the polls have opened for Malaysia's first post-colonial election with 13.1 million voters expected to cast their votes at 8,245 centres nationwide. Polls predict the opposition was just one percentage point ahead of Prime Minister Najib Razak's National Front coalition. If the opposition wins, it would prove a comeback for former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who was sacked in 1998 in a power struggle and jailed on corruption and sodomy charges, which he says were invented.

Euronews says thousands of Sunni Muslims have fled a Syrian coastal town a day after reports circulated that dozens of people, including children, had been killed by pro-government gunmen in the area. The violence occurred as embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad made his second public appearance in a week in the capital, Damascus.

Meanwhile, The Jerusalem Post reports Israeli officials confirmed that the country’s air force carried out an airstrike against Syria, saying it targeted a shipment of advanced missiles bound for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of the Assad regime. It was the second Israeli strike this year against Syria and the latest salvo in its long-running effort to disrupt Hezbollah’s quest to build an arsenal capable of defending against Israel’s air force and spreading destruction inside the Jewish state. Previous reports that planes had struck a Syrian chemical weapons factory have been denied.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro took a swipe at Barack Obama on Saturday, calling him the “grand chief of devils” after the US president declined to recognise his contested re-election.
AFP recalled that during a visit to Costa Rica on Friday, Obama would not say whether the United States recognised Maduro as the winner of last month's presidential election. He told US Spanish-language network Univision that the entire region "has been watching the violence, the protests, the crackdowns on the opposition" following the controversial April 14 election.

Fox News reports the US National Rifle Association vice president Wayne LaPierre has implored members to never surrender their weapons in the wake of recent gun control efforts in Congress that he said will “destroy us and every ounce of our freedom”. Addressing the organisation’s annual meeting in Houston, Texas, LaPierre sais “political and media elites” have tried to use December’s shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, and other recent mass shootings “to blame us, to shame us, to compromise our freedom for their agenda”.

The New York Times says seven US soldiers and a member of the NATO-led coalition were killed on Saturday in one of the deadliest days for Americans and other foreign troops in Afghanistan in recent months, as the Taliban continued attacks as part of their spring offensive. The renewed violence came as Afghan President Hamid Karzai acknowledged at a news conference that regular payments his government has received from the CIA for more than a decade would continue.

Voice of Nigeria announces that at least 24 people have been killed in ethnic violence in a town in Nigeria’s Taraba state. Many others were also injured in the violence that sparked during a funeral service that pitted the Jukun people against the Hausa Fulani. Officials later placed the town on a 24-hour curfew. Nigeria, home to more than 160 million people, has more than 250 different ethnicities.

Il Tempo says Italian police have arrested 19 baggage handlers amid an investigation into suitcase theft at Rome’s Fiumicino airport. Alitalia workers in Bologna, Verona and Naples have also been investigated as part of a year-long operation. The probe involves more than 100 reports of theft and damage.

 

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