The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports how Brussels is seeking clarifications on Malta's Budget.
l-orizzont says the cost of living has been the lowest in 30 years. It was announced yesterday that the cost of living increase in the Budget will be 58c.
In-Nazzjon and the Malta Independent lead with the approval of the Juncker European Commission by the European Parliament.
The overseas press
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said his country would not be intimidated by the two attacks that killed two soldiers this week, adding that security agencies would do everything needed to counter threats to the country. Globe & Mail reports that in a brief address to the nation, Harper said it would become clear in days to come whether the man who launched a gun attack on parliament – and whom he called “a terrorist” – was acting alone or had accomplices.
Toronto Star says the gunman, whose name was on a terror watch list, the Canadian soldier near parliament at the National War Memorial and attempted to storm Canada’s parliament before being gunned down in turn by the assembly’s sergeant-at-arms. Shots were also fired at a nearby shopping mall. All three sites – the National War Memorial, parliament and the shopping centre – are within a mile from each other. The police are looking for as many as two other suspects.
The Jerusalem Post reports a baby died and eight other people were injured when a Palestinian drove his car at a group of pedestrians at a Jerusalem light railway stop. The police shot the driver as he fled. Adbel-Rahman Shaloudi, 21, a Palestinian man of East Jerusalem, later died of his injuries. Police described the actions of the driver a “terrorist attack”.
Associated Press says an unidentified man was in the custody after he climbed over the White House fence and was swiftly apprehended on the North Lawn by uniformed Secret Service agents and their dogs. The incident came about a month after a previous White House fence jumper sprinted across the same lawn, past armed uniformed agents and entered the mansion before he was felled in the ceremonial East Room and taken into custody.
AFP reports violence, including a suicide attack at a security checkpoint, killed at least 11 people on Wednesday in Benghazi. The latest bloodshed brings to 110 the death toll in Benghazi since former general Khalifa Haftar launched on an assault last week supported by the army against Islamist fighters who seized the eastern city in July.
CNN says a US federal jury has found four Blackwater security guards guilty of killing 14 Iraqis in a square in Baghdad in 2007. One former guard was found guilty of murder with three others guilty of voluntary manslaughter. A further 17 Iraqis were injured as the private contractors opened fire to clear the way for a US convoy. The shootings sparked international outrage and a debate over the role of defence contractors in warfare.
Le Soir reports the EU’s incoming chief Jean-Claude Juncker vowed to unveil a huge growth investment package before Christmas but also promised to enforce budget rules as lawmakers voted in his new team. In his keynote address to the European Parliament before it voted on whether to approve the 28-member commission, Juncker called on legislators to back his 300-billion-euro investment package to boost the economy and create employment.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports European leaders aim to agree a new decade of energy policy to cut climate-warming gas emissions out to 2030 at an EU summit later today, though sharp differences over sharing the cost means a deal could elude them. The 28 member states want to set the pace for a global pact to be hammered out in Paris next year with industrial powers from Asia, North America and the rest of the world.
Tribune de Genève quotes the World Health Organization saying the number of people infected with the deadly Ebola virus has reached 9,936 and that 4,877 had died from the virus. WHO officially declared Nigeria and Senegal free of Ebola but said the virus was still “persistent and diffuse” in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
Immigrants to EU countries who were subjected to forced repatriation between the years 2006 and 2013 totalled 10,855. L’Echo reports European Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly has opened an investigation into the European border management agency Frontex to ensure the agency was respecting immigrants’ fundamental human rights during forced repatriation to their countries of origin. The repatriations came as a result of 209 joint operations undertaken in those years by EU and Frontex.