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

Times of Malta reports that the UN envoy to Libya has arrived in Malta for talks with the Libyan prime minister. The Turkish envoy to Libya was also in Malta yesterday.

The Malta Independent says Konrad Mizzi is promising a new timeframe for the new power station by the end of November.

MaltaToday quotes Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi saying a letter showed former minister George Pullicino’s direct involvement in a controversial contract for PV panels before the election.

l-orizzont claims former minister George Pullicino sidelined the Malta Resources Authority in a controversial contract awarded before the general election.

In-Nazzjon quotes Simon Busuttil saying the government's failure to keep to the power station timetable confirmed how right the PN had been in its criticism of the project.

The overseas press

Le Monde reports Ukrainian authorities have asked the EU for a two-billion-euro loan to repay Ukraine’s debt outstanding for gas from Russia.  

Ansa says Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is facing a number of budget-related headaches from unions blasting measures affecting pension paydays to questions and “clarifications” sought from the European Commission.  

AGI reports anti-establishment Cinque Stelle Movement leader Beppe Grillo has kept up his campaign to get Italy to leave the euro after spurring controversy with an anti-immigrant rant that included a call for all migrants to have medical tests.  

South China Morning Post says the first talks aimed at ending the rallies that have paralysed Hong Kong’s streets have ended with neither the government nor student protest leaders giving in.  

VOA News reports US officials have welcomed the release of Jeffrey Fowle, an American who had been detained in North Korea since May. Fowle, who arrived in North Korea on a tourist visa, was arrested earlier this year after leaving a Bible in a North Korean restaurant and bar.  

CBS News reports a man involved in an attack on the Canadian military this week had been a radicalised Muslim, according to Canadian officials. The 25-year-old was involved in a deadly hit-and-run on two soldiers.  According to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office, the suspect – a convert to Islam – had come to the attention of the federal authorities this year.

Al-Ahram says an Egyptian military court has sentenced to death seven members of an Al-Qaeda inspired jihadist group for carrying out deadly attacks on the army. Two other members of Ansar Beit al-Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem) were sentenced to life in prison, which amounts to 25 years in Egypt.  

Press TV reports that in a new video posted online, Islamic State militants have claimed they had captured weapons and ammunition dropped by the US military that was intended for Kurdish forces defending an embattled Syrian city of Kobani near the Turkish border. In the video, ISIS claims some of the weapons and ammunition was air-dropped by mistake on its positions in Kobani.

Mail & Guardian reports a mixed reaction to the five-year sentence imposed by the South Africa courts on Oscar Pistorius for the negligent killing of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day last year. Her mother said she felt justice had been served.  

Aftonbladet quotes a senior naval officer saying Sweden’s military was working on two new observations that could be evidence of suspected foreign underwater activity near the country’s capital.  

El Pais reports Teresa Romero, the Spanish nurse who was the first person to catch Ebola in Europe, has been cured of the deadly virus according to definitive test results. The criteria set by the World Health Organisation for curing the Ebola virus had been fulfilled.

La Republica says two primary school teachers who asked their pupils to write an essay on the theme “Who would you kill first, Mum or Dad?”, have been suspended “as a precaution”.  

A Congolese gynaecologist who founded a hospital for war gang-rape victims in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has received this year’s Sakharov Prize from the European Parliament. L’Echo says Denis Mukwege, 56, founded and works in Bukavu.

The bodies of up to four babies have been discovered in a storage locker in the western Canadian city of Winnipeg. The Manitoban reports the police, who said an autopsy was underway, said they were speaking with a number of individuals as part of their investigation into the gruesome discovery.

 

 

 

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