The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta reports that a 49-year-old man was charged with raping the eight-year-old daughter of his former partner while the girl’s mother was out prostituting herself. It also says Tuesday’s nationwide power outage was the result of a single faulty cable.
In-Nazzjon says the blackout was one the like of which had not been seen in 25 years, with many industrial and commercial zones as well as families having to spend 19 hours without electricity.
L-Orizzont says the blackout provided astronomers with an opportunity to take photographs of star-lit skies, something they found difficult to do on other days because of light pollution.
The Malta Independent says the Mgarr Feast and Culture Committee has blasted former parish priest Emanuel Camilleri and branded him a “de facto dictator”.
International news
Fox News reports that after a US Army Special Forces team was flown atop Sinjar Mountain in Iraq to assess the situation, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters that far fewer refugees were stranded and it was far less likely the US would undertake a rescue mission. Hagel said airdrops of food and water had sustained the refugees and that airstrikes on Islamic State group militants had allowed many to escape.
A senior Isis official has confirmed to CNN that jihadists have detain at least 100 women and children Yazidis. They were kidnapped a week ago in Sinjar when fighters have entered, killing a large number of men. The official said they were taken to Mosul where they would be converted to Islam.
Le Soir announces that an extraordinary EU Foreign Affairs Council takes place in Brussels tomorrow to discuss the crisis in Iraq, Gaza and Ukraine. The meeting would be chaired by the the EU Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton.
Al Ahram says Egyptian and Palestinian officials have said Israel and Hamas have agreed to extend a temporary cease-fire for five days, permitting the sides to continue to negotiate a substantive deal to end the war in Gaza. Yet even as the extension was announced just minutes before a previous truce was set to expire at midnight, violence spiked, with Palestinian militants firing five rockets at Israel and Israel targeting sites across the Gaza Strip in response.
The New York Times reports Saudi Arabia has given $100 million to the United Nations to help in the global fight against terrorism. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon accepted the donation for the United Nations Counter-terrorism Centre – launched in 2011 to tackle new security threats posed by terrorism. The Saudi donation follows its giving $500 million to the UN effort helping Iraqis forced to flee the violence in their own country.
Reuters reports Pope Francis arrived in the South Korean capital Seoul after sending an unprecedented message of goodwill to China as he flew over the country that does not allow its Catholics to recognise his authority. The pontiff will spend five days in South Korea, meeting some of the country's five million Catholics on the first trip by a pontiff to Asia since 1999. North Korea fired three short-range rockets off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea's Ministry of Defence said, shortly before Pope Francis arrived in Seoul.
Kyiv Post says a rebel-held city in eastern Ukraine came under intensified shelling Wednesday as the UN revealed that the death toll from the fighting between government troops and separatists has nearly doubled in the last two weeks. The UN's human rights office said the organisation's very conservative estimates show the overall death toll has risen to at least 2,086 people as of August 10, up from 1,129 on July 26.
O Globo reports Brazilian presidential candidate Eduardo Campos has died in a plane crash, ahead of elections in October. Brazil’s air force said the small Cessna aircraft carrying Campos had attempted to land in bad weather. The government has ordered three days of official mourning.
Focus news agency says a consignment of experimental Ebola drugs has arrived in Liberia to treat two doctors suffering from the virus, which has killed more than 1,000 people across four West African countries. The world's worst outbreak of Ebola has claimed the lives of 1,069 people and there are 1,975 probable and suspected cases, the vast majority in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to new figures from the World Health Organisation. Three people have died in Nigeria.
The Associated Press says a large international study questions the conventional wisdom that most people should cut back on salt, suggesting that the amount most people consume is appropriate for heart health – and too little may be as bad as too much. The findings came under immediate attack by other scientists. Limiting salt is still important for people with high blood pressure and a second study estimates that too much sodium contributes to up to 1.65 million deaths each year. The studies both have strengths and weaknesses, and come as the US government is preparing to nudge industry to trim sodium in processed and restaurant foods.