The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports how a man died and another was critically injured when a car driven by a 17-year-old smashed into a bus stop. It also reports that the Libyan prime minister and half his Cabinet are in Malta.
l-orizzont gives prominence to comments by the Energy Minister yesterday that a contract for the provision of PV panels, awarded by the former government, is under police investigation.
In-Nazzjon leads with Simon Busuttil’s remarks in Parliament yesterday, where he said that Malta has a government ‘which lies’.
The Malta Independent says no power station completion date was given in parliament.
The overseas press
RIA Novosti quotes President Obama saying in Maryland that Russian policy was one of the three main reasons Americans should worry about – along with the Ebola virus and the Islamic State terrorist group. The agency recalled that a similar statement by Obama last September at the UN General Assembly had met with sharp criticism from Moscow. The Russian Foreign Ministry had called it “a set of clichés and propaganda slogans”.
Libya Herald reports Prime Minister Abdullah Thinni has warned that illegal immigration and weapons smuggling were among the greatest dangers Libya faced, adding terrorists from the Islamic State, Boko Haram and Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb had entered the country through neighbouring states. He announced he was seeking to extend a joint border force agreement signed with Sudan, to Chad, Niger, Algeria and Tunisia.
France 24 says Moscow’s Vnukovo airport early today confirmed that the President of the French energy company Total, Christophe de Margerie, was among five people who died when their plane, a Falcon 50 jet, collided with a snow-clearing machine as it was taxiing for take-off on a flight to Paris.
Tass reports outgoing European Commission president Josè Manuel Barroso has said the lawsuits filed by Russian companies over the EU sanctions against Moscow may create new problems for Brussels. Russia’s state oil company Rosneft and businessman Arkady Rotenberg filed a lawsuit in the European Court of Justice against the EU sanctions that prohibit Russian energy companies and state banks from raising capital in European markets.
Al Jazeera says fierce fighting has erupted in the north of the Syrian town of Kobani, after two days of relative calm. Kurdish defenders were thought to have pushed back Islamic State militants trying to take over the town.
The Earth this year reached the hottest average temperature for September since record keeping began 135 years ago. Deutsche Welle quotes US meteorologists saying global temperatures averaged 15.7 degrees Celsius, the fourth monthly heat record broken in 2014.
ABC TV announces the death of former Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. He was 98.
Fuji TV announces the resignation of yet another woman minister from the Japanese cabinet of Prime Minster Shinzo Abe, this time that of Midori Matsushima, responsible for justice. She was accused of violating electoral laws.
The journal Cell Transplantation reveals a paralysed man has been able to walk again after a pioneering therapy that involved transplanting cells from his nasal cavity into his spinal cord. Darek Fidyka, 40, who was paralyzed from the chest down in a knife attack in 2010, can now walk using a frame.
The Iranian opposition website, Iranwire, says a number of women have been scarred with acid in Isfahan by a group of motorcyclists who want to punish young people who violate the law of the Islamic veil. Iranian police say they arrested four men in connection with the attacks.
A woman has been rescued from a chimney after she became stuck while allegedly breaking into the home of a man she met online. KTLA TV footage showed emergency personnel dismantling the chimney brick-by-brick to reach the woman, stuck more than two metres down. The man whose home she was trying to get into said they had met online and dated a few times.