The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Sunday Times of Malta says the budget will be aimed to wean the young off benefits.
MaltaToday says the Budget will eliminate the eco tax, a finance company will be formed to cut hospital waiting lists and there will be tax rebates for employers.
The Malta Independent reports that health centres will be privatised to form public-private partnerships.
Il-Mument says Malta honoured terrorist Mahdi ghal Harati when he was presented with flowers by a diplomat. It also says that the government is expected to give in on the Budget wage increase.
It-Torca quotes Foreign Minister George Vella that neutrality needs to be accompanied by other measures to safeguard security.
Illum says the government will enforce the requirement for employment of persons with disabilities.
KullHadd says there is no place in the PN for Jesmond Mugliett and Robert Musumeci.
The overseas press
ABC reports Australia has made a last ditch call for the G20’s powerful leaders to use all policy levers to rehabilitate global economies and generate prosperity.
Brisbane’s Sunday Mail says the first day was overshadowed by anger with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin over the conflict in Ukraine. Putin criticised US and EU sanctions imposed over Russia’s involvement in the Ukraine conflict, saying they hurt the West as well as Russia.
Kyiv Post reports Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has issued several decrees to withdraw state services, including funding for hospitals and schools, in pro-Russian eastern regions, in a move to cut links with rebel-held territory.
NBC News says America’s top general has told US troops in Iraq that the momentum was turning against the Islamic State (IS) militants. Gen Martin Dempsey, on an unannounced visit, called the militants “midgets” but said the battle against them was likely to take years.
According to al bawaba, Iraqi government forces have broken the siege of the country’s main oil refinery, where security forces held out for months against Islamic State militants. The advance to the refinery came a day after another significant victory for Iraqi forces, who recaptured the strategic town of Baiji, just to the south.
Britain’s Mail on Sunday reports Jihadi John, the Briton who beheaded two British and two American hostages held by Islamic State terrorists, has been injured in a US-led air strike last Saturday, according to reports received by the Foreign Office. He is believed to have been treated in an Iraqi hospital in the town of Al Qaim, following the airstrike and moved to the IS stronghold of Raqqa in Syria, centre.
France 24 says the robotic spacecraft Philae has shut down after radioing results of its first and probably last batch of scientific experiments from the surface of a comet. Batteries aboard the European Space Agency’s (ESA) comet lander drained, shutting down the probe after an adventurous and largely unscripted 57-hour mission.
South China Morning Post reports three student pro-democracy protest leaders in Hong Kong have been prevented from boarding a plane to Beijing. The three leaders of the Hong Kong Federation of Students had hoped to meet China’s leaders as part of their campaign for greater democracy, but were told their travel permits were invalid.
Het Parool says Dutch police have arrested dozens of people during a protest over Black Pete, a controversial black-faced sidekick to the local St Nicholas. The police said most of the 90 people were arrested for protesting in a non-designated area in the city of Gouda.
O Globo reports a judge in north-eastern Brazil has sentenced three people – a man, his wife and his mistress – to between 20 and 23 years in jail after they were convicted of killing a woman and eating her. The trio allegedly sold pastries made from the woman’s flesh to neighbours. The trio claimed to be part of a group that supported “the purification of the world and the reduction of its population”.
Allegations of sexual harassment by Bill Cosby have led to the cancellation of his TV appearances in the coming days, like the David Letterman Show. After the plea agreement in 2006 with Jane Doe, who accused him of rape, this time it was Barbara Bowman’s turn to attack the comic with interviews in The Washington Post, pointing the finger at the father of Robinson for raping her decades ago.