The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports a car chase which saw a minister's driver fire two warning shots at a Briton yesterday.
The Malta Independent says 7,000 single mothers on benefits are being urged to go out to work.
In-Nazzjon leads with the arraignment of two man accused of human trafficking in connection with worker abuse at Leisure Clothing.
l-orizzont gives prominence to a decision to stop bee imports from southern Italy after the discovery of a destructive pest. It also says that Playmobil will save €900,000 from the power tariff reductions.
The overseas press
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has called on the international community to do more to tackle terrorism. ABC reports that chairing a special meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, Ms Bishop said the Islamic state militants and their ilk were an affront to Islam.
Ansa says delegates from more than 170 countries have agreed on the need to eradicate malnutrition around the world. Participants at the Second International Conference on Nutrition heard that although hunger worldwide had fallen by 21 per cent since 1992, more than 800 million people in the world still go hungry. Under-nutrition is linked to some 2.8 million annual deaths of children under five years of age.
The worldwide cost of obesity is about the same as smoking or armed conflict and greater than both alcoholism and climate change. The BBC quotes the McKinsey Global Institute saying obesity cost €1.6 trillion, or 2.8 per cent of annual economic activity. Some 2.1 billion people, or about 30 per cent of the world’s population, were overweight or obese.
Euronews reports 2.5 billion people around the world live without toilets. World Toilet Day marks a deadly reality: every day in under-developed countries, some 2,000 children aged five or younger die from diarrhoea-like illnesses because they do not have proper toilets to use. Open air defecation is practised by around one billion people with India having 600 million without toilets.
Courier Mail says a big clean-up continues across Brisbane this morning after wild storms pounded the city and surrounds late yesterday. The storm brought winds gusting to more than 100kmph, localised heavy rainfall and subsequent flooding, while more than 16,000 lightning strikes were recorded. Ccars were swept away and at least two properties were hit by lightning.
Meanwhile, CNN reports a massive snowstorm in the United States has left at least eight people dead, stranded motorists and prompted the cancellation flights. The deadly storm may see as much as another 90 centimetres of snowfall today and temperatures are expected remain below normal with all 50 states recording below freezing temperatures on Tuesday.
Le Monde says the Rosetta mission has detected organic molecules on the comet’s surface – exactly the breakthrough discovery that the scientists behind the mission were hoping for. “Organics” are molecules containing carbon and they do form the chemical building blocks of life on Earth. Scientists were still trying to interpret the results.
The New York Times says the UN Security Council has added to its terror list a Libyan Islamist group accused of involvement in the September 2012 attack on the US mission in Benghazi that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans. It slapped sanctions on Ansar al-Sharia for its ties to Al-Qaeda, diplomats said, with an arms embargo, assets freeze and global travel ban targeting the extremists going into force at the request of Britain, France and the United States.
The Washington Times says outraged Republicans have pounced on President Obama’s planned announcement later today on immigration reform, warning that unilateral action will trigger fierce reprisals from a Republican-led Congress. Up to five million undocumented immigrants would get protection from deportation.
Gang leaders ruled the Baltimore City Detention Centre, using smuggled cell phones to direct crimes on the streets outside, dealing drugs and getting four guards pregnant. AP reports a prosecutor told a major trial corrupt guards allowed the state-run jail to become the undisputed turf of the Black Guerilla Family.
La Prensa says this year’s Miss Honduras, Maria Jose’ Alvarado and her sister Sofia Trinidad, have been found dead after being reported missing on Thursday. Trinidad’s boyfriend Plutarco Antonio Ruiz, 28, and another man have been arrested. Police said the sister’s boyfriend confessed to killing them in a jealous rage over his girlfriend dancing with another man.
The BBC announces the death of Jimmy Ruffin, the Motown performer who scored his biggest hit with 1966’s “What Becomes of the Broken Hearted” He was 78. News of his death follows reports last month that he was seriously ill and in intensive care at a Las Vegas hospital.
Jiji Press says a 67-year-old millionairess has been arrested on suspicion of poisoning her husband with cyanide as it emerged six former partners had already died, in Japan’s latest apparent “black widow” case. Chisako Kakehi has been the beneficiary of a combined 800 million yen (€5.4 million) over the last two decades – insurance money and other assets she received after the seven men’s deaths. Questioned by reporters earlier this year, former bank worker Kakehi protested her innocence.