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

Times of Malta leads its Budget coverage by quoting Finance Minister Edward Scicluna that this was a Budget to make work pay.

The Malta Independent leads with the heading Budget 2015: On Track, but the new power station is the elephant in the room.

MaltaToday says the Budget features carrot and stick on social benefits, tax credits for the middle class and business-private partnerships.

In-Nazzjon quotes Simon Busuttil saying the Budget lacks direction and does not fairly distribute wealth.

l-orizzont says the Budget featured ideas for change.

The overseas press

Le Soir reports cost-conscious EU governments and a more generous-minded European Parliament failed to reach an eleventh hour agreement for the bloc’s 2015 budget late Monday, forcing officials to draw up a new proposal. EU member states and the European Parliament have been locked in marathon talks to agree a budget of about €140 billion for 2015.

According to Tass, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini intends to visit Moscow in order to step up the dialogue with Russia, after “several European ministers” asked her to do so.
Meanwhile, Berliner Zeitung quotes German Chancellor Angela Merkel warning Russia she would not allow it “trample on international law” and undermine the peaceful post-Cold War order in Europe.

Deaths from terrorism have increased by 61 per cent to 18,000. Quoting the Global Terrorism Index 2014 report, the BBC says there were nearly 10,000 terrorist attacks in 2013 – a 44 per cent increase on the previous year. The report said militant groups Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Taliban were behind most of the deaths.

London’s The Times reports an unprecedented global investigation is under way into an Islamic State death squad as France identified one of at least 20 foreign killers as a man from Normandy. Thousands of Europeans have joined the ISIS jihadists to fight in Syria and Iraq, and there are more who have directly been involved in the beheading of US hostage Peter Kassig and 15 more Syrian soldiers.

Magyar Hirlap says some 10,000 Hungarians have taken to the streets of Budapest to rally against the government in a protest against Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s employment of “corrupt officials” and his government’s closeness to Russia. Similar protests took pace in at least 20 other Hungarian cities as well as London, Berlin and Stockholm.

Radio Praha reports Czech Republic President Milos Zemen was pelted with eggs on a day to mark the 25th anniversary of the Velvet revolution. Protesters were showing their anger at what they see as the president’s drift towards Moscow.  

From cannabis plantations to prostitution to forced marriages to child trafficking and abuse, there are currently 35.8 million people enslaved across the world. Newsweek quotes the Global Slavery Index which shows Europe counts 556,000 among the newly enslaved.

CNN says Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has declared a state of emergency, ahead of a jury verdict expected on whether or not a white police officer would be charged in the shooting death of a black 18-year-old in August.  

Fox News reports mass-murderer Charles Manson has obtained a licence to marry a 26-year-old woman who visits him in prison. Manson, along with 3 women, were convicted in the gruesome killings of actress Sharon Tate and four others in 1969, and grocers Leno and Rosemary La Bianca who were killed the following night.

Tiempo says the family of the reigning Miss Honduras has pleaded with police to find their teenage daughter, who was abducted just days before she was set to fly to London for the Miss World contest. 

ABC News reports 2,500,000 children in the US – or one child out of thirty – are homeless. It says the alarm was launched by the National Centre on Family Homelessness after it announced the results of a shock report which shows that in 201, child poverty in the US has grown by eight per cent.

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