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

The Times of Malta leads with the action taken yesterday by Mepa after illegal pesticides were found in a farm.

The Malta Independent says the PN is struggling to find a political heavyweight for the MEP elections.

In-Nazzjon highlights a political appointment for Jimmy Magro, the former PL general secretary.

l-orizzont says the Budget has scared the PN. It also laments the disappearance of 'giren' stone huts from the Maltese countryside.

The overseas press

The BBC reports European Foreign Ministers and the US Secretary of State John Kerry are travelling to Geneva to attend international talks on Iran’s nuclear programme. The move comes amid speculation that a deal could be close. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is already at the talks.

The eurozone warned five countries led by Spain and Italy to deliver on promises to hit deficit and debt targets in national spending plans next year. AFP reports the Eurogroup of finance ministers and the European Commission put the five – which also include Finland, Luxembourg and Malta – in the spotlight after a first-ever peer review of national eurozone budgets before being passed in national parliaments. France too was told it must accelerate a reform drive, including an assurance to open up labour markets next year.

Xinhua says further progress has been made on cooperation between the EU and China as a deal for investments and access to markets – to last until 2020 – was struck. The agreement was the foremost achievement of the sixteenth China-EU summit, held in Beijing over the past few days, during which China and the European Union announced the cooperation plan and started talks over a protocol for investments. The meeting between Chinese and European leaders was the first since President Xi Jinping took office last year.

Baltic Times says growing numbers of people have been arriving at the collapsed supermarket in the Latvian capital Riga to lay flowers and light candles in memory of the 50 people that are known to have been killed when the roof caved in. Search teams sifting the rubble have periodically turned off all equipment and asked families of missing people to phone their relatives so they could pin point the ring tone in the debris.

Deutsche Welle reports jailed former Ukraine Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko has called for street protests after a key deal with the European Union was suspended. Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, says the EU bullied Ukraine.

Berliner Zeitung says Chancellor Angela Merkel has praised the "substantial progress" Greece has made in its economic reforms. Visiting Prime Minister Antonis Samaras said his government intended to continue its course.

According to al bawaba, the seven main Islamist groups fighting to overthrow Syria's authoritarian president Bashar al-Assad have announced they had joined forces to form an “Islamic Front”. Syrian activists welcomed the merger and said it was a blow for Assad and for the Al-Qaeda affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), which has fought against some rebel brigades in opposition-held areas.

Afghan Post reports that Afghanistan on Friday rebuffed a US demand to sign a highly-anticipated security pact as soon as possible, insisting the document must wait until after the country’s presidential election next year. Washington warned Kabul on Thursday to act quickly to sign the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), with senior officials hinting that delaying beyond the end of this year could mean no post-2014 US troop presence.

Al Ahram says a ten-year-old boy was killed by a stray bullet on Friday in Suez during clashes between supporters and opponents of former president Mohamed Morsi. The Morsi supporters proclaimed a week of action against the military, who were behind the coup which deposed the president on July 3 and also deemed responsible for the ensuing massacre on August 14 in Cairo's Rabaa al-Adawiya square, where at least 600 Islamist protesters were killed when government forces stormed their camp. The central theme of the declared protests was the condemnation of the “Massacre of the Century”.

Radio Manila has announced that the death toll from one of the strongest typhoons on record has risen above 5,000 and is likely to climb further. Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said 4,919 people were killed on Leyte, Samar and nearby islands in the Eastern Visayas region. Civil defense chief Eduardo del Rosario said 290 others died in other parts of the central and southern Philippines.

Times of India reports Norwegian 22-year-old Magnus Carlsen beat reigning world champion 43-year-old Viswanhathan Anand in the World Chess Championship final in Chennai, India. Carlsen is the second-youngest world champion after Russia's Garry Kasparov. The games between Carlesn and Anand began on November 9, and ended in three wins out of ten matches for Carlsen.

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