The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta quotes UN High Commissioner for Refugees António Guterres calling on the EU to show enhanced solidarity with Malta as the Mediterranean Sea witnessed yet another migrant tragedy. In another story, it says planning authority inspectors yesterday found grit, possibly hazardous, buried under concrete at Palumbo Shipyards in Cospicua.
L-Orizzont reports about Mr Guterrez's meeting with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat during which the former stressed the need for solidarity and assistance mechanisms to be strengthened.
The Malta Independent says this year is on track to become the deadliest ever for migrants crossing the Mediterranean with migration officials fearing another 700 people fleeing Africa died in the past week.
In-Nazzjon says the Nationalist Party has approved its first 12 candidates for the general election.
International news
Fifteen Libyans were slightly wounded as a warplane carried out an air raid on a military base held by anti-government militias. State news agency LANA said that the raid, claimed by renegade former General Khalifa Haftar, hit a munitions depot in the town of Gharyan, 120 kilometres southwest of the capital. The militias in Gharyan form part of Fajr Libya (Libya Dawn), an alliance including Islamists that was targeted by unidentified warplanes near Tripoli airport last month.
Representatives of 30 countries, including the United States, Russia and China, have pledged “appropriate military assistance” to fight the Islamic State (IS) jihadist insurgency in Iraq. Le Monde reports leaders attending a conference in Paris stressed IS extremists were “a threat not only to Iraq but also to the entire international community” and underscored the “urgent need” to remove them from Iraq, where they control some 40 per cent of the territory.
Meanwhile, USA Today says the United States has carried out an airstrike near Baghdad in what defence officials said was the start of an expanded action against Islamic State extremists in Iraq. American warplanes also carried out one air strike near Mount Sinjar, in the north of Iraq, in the past 24 hours. Australian warplanes and hundreds of military personnel will arrive to join the campaign within days.
According to Deutsche Welle, a court in Frankfurt has offered a lenient punishment to alleged IS member Kreshnik B. in return for his cooperation. The 20-year-old is the first suspect affiliated with the jihadist group to face a German court.
The Financial Times reports British Prime Minister David Cameron has made a final appeal to Scots to vote No and avoid a “painful divorce” amid claims that he and his inner circle were slow to heed warnings from senior civil servants that the UK could be heading for a break-up. A latest poll showed nearly two-thirds of voters in England objected to the idea of sharing the pound. The US intervened in the Scottish referendum debate, saying the American presidency wished for “a strong and united partner”.
Warsaw Voice announces Ewa Kopacz has been appointed Poland’s new Prime Minister. Observers said she was expected to continue the agenda set by her predecessor Donald Tusk, who resigned to take up a position as head of the European Council from December 1.
PC World reports Google has revealed that worldwide government requests for user data rose 150 per cent over five years. The United States produced the largest number of requests, 12,539, followed by Germany (3,338) and France (3,002). The company said it provided some data in 65 per cent of the cases.
The New York Times says the UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting on the Ebola crisis on Thursday to find ways to scale up the global response to the epidemic. US ambassador Samantha Power said it was crucial that council members discuss the status of the epidemic that has killed more than 2,400 people.
Börzen Zeitung reports Standard & Poors has downgraded forecasts for growth in the eurozone. The Italian economy would remain stagnant in 2015, not rising 0.5 per cent as predicted in June. France was expected to grow 0.5 per cent not 0.7 per cent and Holland 0.8 per cent rather than one per cent. Germany was unchanged at 1.8 per cent, along with Spain at 1.3 per cent and Belgium at 1.1 per cent.
Ansa quotes Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi saying the mafia was “still strong, not only in Palermo but particularly in the North with its economic connections”. He was speaking in Sicily on the first day of school where he congratulated students receiving scholarships at the Pino Puglisi institute, named for an anti-mafia priest who was assassinated on his birthday in 1993.
Bild reports Germany has charged a 93-year-old man with 300,000 counts of accessory to murder. The man worked as a prison guard for the Auschwitz death camp in 1944.
The Daily Mail reports a 41-year-old British paediatric haematologist has pleaded guilty to a string of sexual offences against cancer sufferers in his care aged as young as 11. Dr Myles Bradbury was bailed out and told he would have to sign the sex offenders register. The offences, involving 18 complainants, date back to 2009.
L’Equipe says long-time FIFA president Sepp Blatter will face at least one rival for next year’s presidential election as former senior FIFA executive Jerome Champagne has confirmed he would contest him. The 56-year-old Frenchman, who worked closely with Blatter between 2002 and 2005 when he was deputy secretary-general, said on Twitter he had informed FIFA he would be a candidate confirming his initial declaration in London back in January.