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

Times of Malta says fear has forced doctors to escape Benghazi. It also separately reports about fears about children using harpoons after licence requirements were lifted.

The Malta Independent quotes the foreign minister saying the Maltese ambassador did not abandon his Tripoli post.

In-Nazzjon says the government is still not being transparent about its actions on Libya. 

l-orizzont highlights the plight of a mother and her children who, it says, are living like slaves in Cospicua. 

The overseas press

The US military has conducted new airstrikes against Islamic militants as sources told Fox News members of the group killed at least 80 male members of Iraq's Yazidi minority in a northern village and kidnapped some 80 of women and children. 

Le Soir reports the EU has agreed to back individual EU governments who wish to send weapons to Iraqi Kurds who are fighting against ISIS militants, as they have the consent of national authorities. T

CNN says the UN Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution condemning radical Islamists in Iraq and Syria and their supporters and calls for the “immediate disbanding and disarming” of all al Qaeda-linked groups there. 

According to RIA Novosti, Russia has denied reports fuelled by Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko that its military trucks were destroyed after entering Ukraine. Poroshenko had confirmed the reports of the Thursday incursion in talks with British Prime Minister David Cameron. 

Voice of Nigeria says suspected Islamist Boko Haram fighters have abducted dozens of boys and men in a raid on a remote village in northeast Nigeria, loading them onto trucks and driving them off. The kidnappings came four months after Boko Haram, which is fighting to reinstate a medieval Islamic caliphate in religiously mixed Nigeria, abducted more than 200 schoolgirls from the village of Chibok. They are still missing.

The New York Times reports Ebola threatens to leave one million in need of food in west African countries hit by the deadly virus. The UN World Food Programme, which has already been providing aid to thousands of people, is planning food conveys to send to the impoverished Ebola-stricken countries, as part of a regional emergency operation. 

According to German media reports, the German foreign intelligence agency BND intercepted at least one call during Clinton’s time in office as US Secretary of State. Süddeutsche Zeitung and public broadcasters NDR and WDR said that Clinton’s calls had been hacked while she was on a plane. The location and date have not been disclosed. German government sources have defended the data interception, saying that the call was picked up “by accident”.

Reuters reports Pope Francis has celebrated a huge open-air Mass in the centre of Seoul, where he denounced the growing gap between the haves and have-nots, urging people in affluent societies to listen to “the cry of the poor” among them. 

Pakistan Observer says some 60,000 anti-government protesters are in Islamabad, vowing to camp out until their demands for a new government are met. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has said he was ready to meet with his opponents but has given no indication that he would step down.

ABC says an Australian same-sex couple at the centre of Thailand's surrogacy scandal has been able to leave the country with their newborn babies. On Thursday, two Australian couples with babies born through commercial surrogacy deals were prevented from leaving Bangkok International Airport. 

 

 

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