Press digest

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

The Times of Malta, In-Nazzjon and The Malta Independent carry pictures of Eurovision singer Gianluca Bezzina on their front page.

The Times of Malta says Tonio Fenech was not aware that a clock gift had actually come from an oil trading firm, according to court testimony.

The Malta Independent says the clock donated to Tonio Fenech was worth far less than originally claimed.

In-Nazzjon says 146 members of ministerial secretariats were not drawn from the civil service.

l-orizzont says the clock to Tonio Fenech was not donated by a woman out of admiration, but it was a gift from an oil trading company.

The overseas press

French President François Hollande has called for the establishment of an “economic government” for the eurozone that would have a full-time president, its own budget and a coordinated tax system. Le Parisien reports Hollande said France wanted to create a more politically-integrated EU within two years to put an end to the “lethargy” that was threatening Europe's future. He also called for new investment aimed at tackling unemployment among Europe's young people, which in the European Union stands at 23.5 per cent and at 24 per cent across the eurozone.

Pope Francis has denounced the global financial system, condemning the cult of money that is tyrannising the poor and turning humans into expendable consumer goods. Avvenire says the Pontiff demanded that financial and political leaders reform the global financial system to make it more ethical and concerned for the common good. In comments at the Vatican as he greeted his first group of new ambassadors accredited to the Holy See, Francis said, “Money has to serve, not to rule!”

Croatia Post quotes EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton expressing hope that all Balkan countries would follow the path of Croatia, set to join the EU on July 1. She was speaking after meeting Croatian President Ivo Josipovic, who said his country supported its neighbours' EU bids. Croatia will become only the second of the former Yugoslav republics to join the EU – nine years after Slovenia. Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kosovo and Serbia remain at different stages in their own bids.

President Obama and Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have insisted that President Bashar al-Assad must quit power as part of moves to end Syria's civil war. The Washington Post says the leaders met in Washington amid a flurry of shuttle diplomacy between world and regional powers, and manoeuvring ahead of a planned international conference that Washington and Moscow have proposed to halt the violence. Their talks came a day before President Putin was to meet UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, and a day after UN members voted to condemn an “escalation” by Assad's forces.

L’Echo says Spanish Greens MEPs members have complained that some €129 million a year of European agricultural funds end up in the Plazas de Toros to finance bullfighting. Raul Romeva said their estimate was based on money spent per hectare for feeding bulls intended for bullfighting. He asked the European Commission to block this funding, emphasising that it made no sense to spend so much money on a traditional festival that tortures animals.

Haaretz says thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews protested in Jerusalem on Thursday against plans to enlist men from their community into the military. A sea of black coats, the traditional attire of ultra-Orthodox men, engulfed the streets near the city's military draft bureau where the crowd heard rabbis warn that army service would irreparably harm their way of life. The proposal has the support of the secular majority which is pushing for a more equal share of the burden.

Iranian women seeking to run in the presidential election next month have been told they are not allowed to take part. al bawaba says the remark by Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, a member of Iran’s constitutional watchdog group, effectively kills the largely symbolic bids by about 30 women seeking to run in the June 14 election. Women, however, are cleared to run for Iran’s parliament and have served as MPs.

Medical News quotes a study by the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention showing that as many as one-fifth of American children and teens suffer from mental disorders – and the incidence of such ailments is rising, The data reveals the most prevalent mental ailment was ADHD, which was found in 6.8 per cent of the nation's youth, followed by behavioural or conduct problems (3.5 per cent); anxiety (three per cent); depression (2.1 per cent); autism spectrum disorders (1.1 per cent); and Tourette syndrome (0.2 per cent). This was costing the country an estimated $247 billion a year.

The Irish Times reports a Dublin student wrongly branded a taxi fare dodger in a viral YouTube video has won a major victory in a High Court action against tech giants Facebook and Google. Eoin McKeogh is close to securing an order for all material arising from this clip to be taken down from the web permanently on a worldwide basis. The video has been taken down but the 23-year-old now looks set to secure an order ensuring all online defamatory material arising from the posting will be removed permanently on a worldwide basis.

USA Today says a mother who saw her five-year-old daughter being abducted chased the suspect down and crashed her vehicle into his car, triggering a manhunt. As the woman saw her child being forced into a car, she jumped into her vehicle and gave chase for about seven miles, unaware the man had pushed the girl out of the car shortly after grabbing her. The girl was not injured. The mother followed the suspect and finally rammed into his car near a junction. He fled on foot. Police in Albuquerque, New Mexico, are still searching for the man, who they say matches the description of a suspect who sexually assaulted and returned a girl in the same neighbourhood last week.

According to a study in the Journal of Palaeontology, the science world has paid homage to Johnny Depp by giving his name to an extinct creepy-crawly with “scissor hand-like” claws reminiscent of one of the actor's best-known roles, that of Edward Scissorhands in the 1990 eponymous film. Kooteninchela deppi was a 505-million-year-old distant ancestor of lobsters and scorpions