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

The Times of Malta reports how all of Malta’s diplomats have been pulled out of Libya.

The Malta Independent says Air Malta is to fill two high-end positions - those of chief commercial officer and chief financial officer.

In-Nazzjon reports that the constable at the heart of the controversy over last Wednesday’s shooting was forced to lie that he fired into the air.

l-orizzont leads with the President’s Fun Run, held yesterday to raise funds for the Community Chest Fund.

The overseas press

Foreign ministers trying to reach an agreement on Iran’s nuclear programme are considering extending negotiations as tonight’s deadline for a deal looms. VOA News reports the diplomats still report serious differences at the talks in Vienna, and may look to agreeing an interim framework.

According to Al Jazeera, some 64 per cent of Tunisia’s registered voters have cast their ballots to directly elect their president for the first time since the revolution four years. Exit polls give Bèji Caid Essebsi, whose  party won last month’s parliamentary polls, 42.7 per cent of the votes and Moncef Marzouki 32.6 per cent. The two face each other in a run-off next month.

Fox News reports police in the US city of Cleveland have shot dead a 12-year-old boy who was in a playground waving around what turned out to be a toy gun. Officers, who were responding to an emergency call that the boy was pointing a gun at people, asked the boy to drop the weapon and show his hands and he went into his waist band and pulled out the weapon. They fired at the boy twice, hitting him at least once in the stomach. He later died in hospital.

ABC announces a 30-year-old woman has been charged with the attempted murder of her newborn baby boy, who was found in a drain in Sydney’s west. The unnamed women was arrested after an extensive police search. She was charged with attempted murder but did not appear in court. The magistrate recommended she be provided with post-natal care while in custody.

Assabah reports at least eight people were killed and 24 have been reported missing in Morocco because of a wave of exceptionally bad weather in the south of the country. Violent storms, still in progress, have caused flooding and overflowing rivers around the massive Atlas Mountains.

Daily Post says Kenyan government forces have pursued and killed more than 100 of Somalia’s Islamist Al Shabaab militants after the ambush of a Nairobi-bound bus that killed 28 people– 19 men and nine women. The al-Shabab gunmen attacked the bus, shooting dead non-Muslim passengers who could not quote verses from the Koran.

Ansa reports Italy’s first female astronaut is heading to the International Space Station. Samantha Cristoforetti is due today to join Russian Elana Serova, who was already on board the ISS. It will be only the second time in the orbiting platform’s 16-year history that two women have been aboard on long-term missions.

A leading US computer security company says it has discovered one of the most sophisticated pieces of malicious software ever seen. California Chronicle quotes Symantec experets saying the bug, named Regin, was probably created by a government and has been used for six years against a range of targets around the world. Computers in Russia, Saudi Arabia and Ireland have been hit most.

London’s The Times reports the findings of a survey being made public today show that divorce has a devastating impact on the children of divided couples, leading to poor examination results and driving them to abuse alcohol or drugs. Divorce also appears to trigger eating disorders, with almost one in three children saying that they ate more, or less, after the family break-up. Each year about 100,000 under-16s experience divorce.

Afghan Post says 45 people have been killed, and 50 others wounded, in a suicide bomber attack at a volleyball match in Afghanistan. Most of the casualties were civilians.

The BBC reports British-Iranian Ghoncheh Ghavami, who was detained after attempting to watch a men’s volleyball match in Iran, has been freed on bail. Her family says she was freed because of health problems and was staying with her parents in Tehran awaiting a decision by the Court of Appeal.

Peruvian authorities are investigating the deaths of some 500 sea lions whose rotting corpses were found on a northern beach. Environmental police told Andina they were investigating a complaint from the governor of the local Samanco district, who said the sea mammals had been poisoned by marine farmers and fishermen who harvest shellfish.

AFP says a Frenchman with Down’s syndrome got some 30,000 cards from around the world for his 30th birthday, after his mother put out a call on Facebook that went viral. By the time Manuel Parisseaux’s birthday rolled around on Saturday, so many letters had arrived his family in Calais had to store them in a neighbour’s garage.

 

 

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