The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says an increase of almost 2,000 in public service jobs will cost €20m every year. It also reports that priests have spoken of a leadership vacuum within the church.
The Malta Independent focuses on an illegal development at Mgarr ix-Xini near the Brangelina film set.
In-Nazzjon says more calls have been made by businesses for compensation following last week’s blackout.
l-orizzont says there is uncertainty among local wardens ahead of the introduction of new legislation. The system, the newspaper says, lacks uniformity of enforcement.
The overseas press
Pope Francis has said he was “available” to go to Iraq to provide support for refugees and Christian groups in Kurdistan “if necessary”. Avvenire reports that speaking on board the plane taking him back to Italy from his trip to South Korea, the pope said that proposals considered by the Vatican to help people threatened by jihadists in northern Iraq included the pontiff travelling to the region. Asked about Vatican-China relations, the Pontiff said he was ready to go to Beijing tomorrow.
Al Sumaria says Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, backed by federal forces and US warplanes, pressed a counter-offensive yesterday against jihadists after retaking Iraq’s largest dam, as the United States and Britain stepped up their military involvement. The jihadists also came under attack in their Syrian stronghold of Raqa by Syria’s air force for a second straight day.
Al Ahram reports Egypt has announced a 24-hour extension in talks between Israel and the Hamas militant group aimed at salvaging a long-term arrangement that would allow reconstruction of the Gaza Strip following a month-long war that killed more than 2,000 people. The announcement came just minutes before a temporary truce was set to expire at midnight.
Meanwhile, Israel’s Shin Bet security service said it had thwarted a Hamas coup attempt in the West Bank aimed at toppling Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. According to Haaretz, the plot was orchestrated by senior Hamas official Salah Arouri, who is based in Turkey and enjoys the support of the local officials there. Hamas had no immediate comment to the claim.
AP quotes a pathologist hired by the family of an unarmed 18-year-old, whose fatal shooting by police has sparked a week of protests in suburban St Louis, saying he suffered a bullet wound to his right arm that might indicate his hands were up or his back was turned. However, the pathologist said the team that examined Michael Brown could not be sure yet exactly how the wounds were inflicted.
Kyiv Post says Ukraine has accused pro-Russia separatists of killing dozens of civilians in an attack on a convoy fleeing a besieged rebel-held city. The rebels denied any attack took place, while the US confirmed the shelling of the convoy but said it did not know who was responsible..
The Times reports the Ecuadorian government is to try to meet the UK’s new Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond in a bid to break the deadlock over the future of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Speaking inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London where Assange has been staying for the past two years, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said changes to the UK’s extradition laws created a better climate for reaching a deal. Assange brushed off reports that he was about to give up his fight against extradition to Sweden where he faces sex-related allegations.
Following an anti-monopoly investigation into foreign carmakers, Xinhua says China has accused Mercedes-Benz, a unit of German car giant Daimler, of price-fixing. Pricing authorities in the eastern province of Jiangsu have collected evidence that Mercedes-Benz controlled prices of its spare parts and maintenance services, adding that the total cost of all spare parts for a Mercedes-Benz C-class could be 12 times more than a finished model.
The New Straits Times reports the organiser of a nudist sports festival has apologised for holding the event, which triggered outrage in Muslim-majority Malaysia and led to the arrest of eight people. A video of the May “Nude Sport Games 2014”, which first appeared on social media earlier this month, showed naked participants engaged in a range of activities including body painting, dancing, relay races and various other contests on a secluded Penang beach. Albert Yam is in police custody.
The pope’s nine-language Twitter account, @Pontifex, has passed the 15-million mark following a surge during his visit to South Korea when Korean tweets were sent on his English account, specialist site Il Sismografo said. The most popular accounts are: in Spanish, 6.48 million; in English, 4.36 million; and in Italian, 1.87 million.
Ansa quotes a new study by German research institute IZA showing a husband’s retirement could endanger the mental health of his wife, even more so if she worked. A recently retired husband could bring on anxiety, insomnia and depression in his spouse, according to the study conducted by two Italian scientists from Padua University, who dubbed the condition Retired Husband Syndrome. The risk of the wife displaying such symptoms increased by between five and seven per cent with each passing year of the man’s retirement.
National Geographic says poachers have killed an estimated 100,000 elephants across Africa between 2010 and 2012. A new study – the first to scientifically quantify the number of deaths – found the huge increase in the continent’s death rate of the world’s largest mammals was the result of an increased demand for ivory in Asian nations.