The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta leads with comments by the Prime Minister that people had got used to migrant deaths in the Mediterranean.
The Malta Independent reports how a hunter on an attempted murder charge was sentenced to jail for shooting a protected bird.
l-orizzont reports how the GWU is close to agreement with the government for former port workers or their heirs to benefit from a pensions fund. It also reports that €15m will be invested in the redevelopment of four abandoned government properties.
In-Nazzjon says there is anger at the government after Pitkala middlemen were locked out for failing to set a bank guarantee.
The overseas press
More than 2,000 international news agencies, TV and radio stations and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic report with graphic detail how terrified migrants landing in Sicily told that 12 people were killed in a fight between Christians and Muslims on a boat fleeing from Libya. Ansa reported police in Sicily had arrested 15 people on suspicion of multiple murder aggravated by religious hatred based on information collected from others on the overcrowded migrant boat.
Meanwhile, anti-Christian sentiments continue in Muslim counties as the Vatican news agency Fides reports a 14-year-old Pakistani boy, who was set on fire after declaring he was a Christian, has died. Nauman Masih had been doused with petrol and set alight by a group of Muslim boys. Christians make up some 1.6 per cent of the Pakistani population and are the second-largest religious minority there after Hindus.
The Los Angeles Times quotes Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov, the country’s special envoy to the Middle East and Africa, declaring Russia would deliver weapons to support the Libyan government if a UN weapons embargo is lifted. Egypt and Libya have both requested that the arms embargo, which has been in place since 2011, be lifted so that Libya can combat the threat of ISIS and bring order to the civil war that has raged for nearly a year.
Sputnik reports that in his annual “ask-the-president” event, President Putin has called for the United States to respect his country’s foreign policy priorities and accused Washington of treating other world powers as “vassal states” in a wide-ranging call-in show that ran nearly four hours.
AFP reports a Chinese court has today sentenced a 71-year-old woman journalist to seven years in jail for allegedly leaking state secrets. Gao Yu, named one of the International Press Institute’s 50 “world press heroes” in 2000, had been accused of “illegally providing state secrets to foreigners”.
Satellite images show China is building a runway on a contested island in the South China Sea that will accommodate military aircraft such as fighter jets and surveillance planes, giving the Communist nation a major strategic advantage. Military analysts have long specualated that China was planning to build the runway on Fiery Cross Reef, a part of the Spratly Islands, reports The New York Times.
Metro says St Mary’s Hospital in London has guaranteed to Kate Middleton and Prince William a discount of 10 per cent on the daily rate for birth of their second Royal Baby, next week in view of the fact that they had used the same facility when Kate delivered Prince George in 2013. The daily rate will be now be reduced by £600 to £6,000 (€8,300) together with another £6,000 a day for a consultant to the Duchess of Cambridge.
A German cardinal has lambasted fellow church leaders who support admitting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to Holy Communion, calling them heretics who are putting the unity of the Catholic Church at risk. Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, a former head of the Vatican’s commission for historical sciences, told LifeSite News that those who support such a change are “irresponsible” and “in contradiction to the teaching of the Church”. Brandmüller was responding to a proposal, put forward last year by fellow German Cardinal Walter Kasper, for remarried Catholic divorcees to receive Holy Communion after a period of penance.
Twitter has said it is cracking down on mean, hateful or menacing tweets that cross the red line from free speech into abuse. Legal counsel Vijaya Gadde said in an column published by The Washington Post that Twitter was overhauling its safety policy and beefing up the team responsible for enforcing it, along with investing “heavily” in ways to detect and limit the reach of abusive content.
A Florida newspaper that knew ahead of time that a man planned to fly a gyrocopter into restricted airspace at the US Capitol faces questions about whether its editors should have used this knowledge to try and stop the risky stunt. The Tampa Bay Times, which posted a reporter in Washington on Wednesday to document postal worker Doug Hughes’ self-styled protest flight that landed on the Capitol grounds, said that its responsibility was to cover, not change, the story. Hughes is charged with operating an unregistered aircraft and violating national airspace.
Meanwhile, a 95-year-old Northern California man has become the world’s oldest active pilot. The Sacramento Bee reports that Guinness World Record keepers confirmed that a flight last month by Peter Weber Jr. qualified him for the record book.
Ireland has the highest proportion of children in the EU, according to a new Eurostat report. The Irish Times says last year, the proportion of children in Ireland (counted as young people under the age of 15) was 22 per cent. France was next highest, at 18.6 per cent, with the UK on 17.6 per cent and Denmark just behind at 17.2 per cent. In contrast, the lowest shares of young people recorded were in Germany, at 13.1 per cent, Bulgaria (13.7 per cent) and Italy (13.9 per cent).