The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Sunday Times of Malta says the government’s power cut payout is to exclude all businesses. It also quotes Fr Joe Borg, a blogger and former Curia official, as saying that the leadership of the church is in Malta is in crisis.
The Malta Independent on Sunday quotes a UK report saying there is evidence of organised abuse and trade of young boys in Gozo between the 1970s and 1990s. It also says that the government has failed to justify special envoys’ salary.
MaltaToday says a surprise visit to Msida home for the elderly left Parliamentary Secretary Justyne Caruana appalled by a lack of hygiene, poor food quality and bad treatment of the elderly.
It-Torca focuses on a couple who want their twin fostered children to be baptised, but are facing objections from the natural mother.
Il-Mument quotes Judge Giovanni Bonello saying there can be no democratic republic when governance is made in secrecy. His comments are quoted in the context of an article about the government’s failure to publish its agreement with Henley and Shanghai Electric.
Illum reports about the system encouraging economic migrants to come to Malta. It also says a Gozitan priest is expected to be arraigned for child abuse.
KullHadd quotes Transport Minister Joe Mizzi saying talks on the bus service contract are in a crucial stage.
The overseas press
Reuters reports Hamas has rejected offers made in Cairo to Palestinian negotiators seeking to end Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip. Israel said it had also not yet accepted any proposals made in the Egyptian-mediated talks but its envoys would continue attending them.
VOA News says the US has confirmed it has carried out nine air strikes near Arbil and Iraq’s largest dam in an effort to help Kurdish forces retake it from violent extremists. And a senior Kurdish military official said the Peshmerga have seized control of the eastern side of the dam, which provides electricity to northern parts of the country and is key to efforts by Islamic State militants to provide electricity to areas under their control.
Al Ahram quotes the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saying the Jihadists of the Islamic State have killed at least 700 people over the past two weeks in the Syrian province of Deir ez-Zor. Most of the victims were civilians. The massacres apparently involved the members of the al-Sheitat clan, which the Islamic State considers “infidels” and not worthy of “truce, security, money, food, families and spouses”.
Kyiv Post reports that Ukraine and Russia have reached an agreement on the route for a Russian humanitarian convoy heading to eastern Ukraine. The news by the Red Cross came as European leaders scrambled to ease tensions over claims that Ukrainian forces had destroyed Russian military vehicles and deadly shelling pummelled besieged pro-Russian rebel strongholds. Russia dismissed the claims as “fantasies”.
Asia Times says Pope Francis sets out his hopes for the Catholic Church in Asia today as he addresses the region’s bishops and closes out an Asian youth festival. Yesterday, he made a strong, albeit silent, anti-abortion statement stopping to pray at a monument for aborted babies in a community dedicated to caring for people with the sort of severe genetic disabilities that are often used to justify abortions.
The European Union’s employment commissioner Laszlo Andor has told the German conservative daily Die Welt that Germany must increase workers’ salaries to help its neighbours out of the economic slump. His comments come amid signs of stalling growth in the 18-member eurozone, particularly its largest economies Germany and France, as the bloc struggles to recover from years of financial crisis.
Meanwhile, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has said Britain’s economy was “more than halfway” down the path to full recovery, but any interest rate rises will be “limited” and “gradual”. In an interview with The Sunday Times, Carney declared that the economy was now undergoing genuine expansion following the economic crisis of 2008.
US Today reports the governor of the US state of Missouri has declared a state of emergency and curfew following race-related violence in the suburb where an officer shot dead an unarmed Afo-American teenager, 18-year-old Michael Brown, a week ago. Governor Jay Nixon told reporters he signed the order “to protect the people and property of Ferguson”.
Nairobi’s Business Daily says Kenya has closed its borders to travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The decision was taken in the wake of the concern caused by the spreading of the Ebola virus. Kenya Airways has also announced the suspension of flights to and from the three countries where the Ebola virus has spread.
A new app gives users complete access to their partner’s smartphone, allowing them to see not only the text and Facebook messages they are sending but also track their location using GPS technology, The Telegraph writes. The mCouple app, developed by the London-based firm mSpy, can even be used to record voice conversations from a partner’s phone, as well as enabling access to photos and videos stored on the device. And while the creators stress that users must gain consent before downloading the app onto another person’s smartphone – marketing it as a tool for couples who want to “be closer than ever before” – it also offers the possibility of checking up on an errant partner.