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

Times of Malta and l-orizzont report how Vince Farrugia, former GRTU director-general, is to face perjury charges. Times of Malta also reports how the Council of Europe had urged Malta to better observe a regulation on protection for victims of human trafficking. 

The Malta Independent and In-Nazzjon lead with a look ahead at local elections vote-counting which is taking place today.

The overseas press

As fresh fighting broke out near Tripoli, the UN has said it was trying to narrow differences between Libya’s rival parliaments over an agreement aimed at forming a unity government. The differences, confirmed in a statement texted to AFP, emerged in written observations by the two sides on the agreement envoy Bernardino Leon is trying to clinch. 

Meanwhile, Fox News reports President Barack Obama has urged Gulf nations to help calm the chaotic political situation in Libya, saying that outside military action would not be enough to help reduce tensions in the war-ravaged North African country. After a meeting with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi at the White House, Obama said a political solution was needed.

ABC says counterterrorism police have said two of the five men they arrested in an operation in Melbourne were planning an Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack on an Anzac Day ceremony. The two 18-year-old men were arrested this morning. Another man was arrested for weapons offences and two others were in custody assisting police with their enquiries.

France 24 reports French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has announced the government would pour €100 million into a major anti-racism and anti-Semitism action plan devised in the aftermath of January’s deadly Paris jihadist attacks. The programme, which increases penalties for crimes deemed to have been fuelled by racism and anti-Semitism, comes at a time when acts of racism against Muslims and Jews have shot up in France.

The Wall Street Journal says Pope Francis may add another leg to his trip to the United States this September, visiting Cuba just months after he helped negotiate a diplomatic thaw between the two nations. Next July, the Pope will visit Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay and in late September, he will visit Washington, where he will address Congress; New York, where he will address the UN General Assembly; and Philadelphia, where he will celebrate a public Mass that’s expected to draw more than one million people. Two previous Popes have visited the Cuba: St John Paul II in 1998 and former Pope Benedict in 2012.

Press TV announces Iran’s foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has submitted a letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon outlining a four-point peace plan for Yemen, where Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been targeted by Saudi-led air strikes. The three-week air and ground campaign is believed to have forced about 150,000 people from their homes, leaving at least 750 people dead.

A former aide to late Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and a leader of Iraq’s insurgency, Ezzat Ibrahim al-Douri, may have been killed by Iraqi forces and Shiite militias involved in an operation against insurgent forces. Raed al-Jubouri, the governor of Salahuddin province, told al-arabiya TV that al-Douri had been killed, and the station broadcast a photo of a dead man who looked like al-Douri.

El Tiempo says gun battles lasting for several hours have broken out on the streets of Reynosa, a Mexican city on the border with the US, due to the arrest of a drug cartel leader. Authorities issued an urgent warning residents not to use various main roads because of shooting and blockades. The town has been plagued by drug cartel violence.

Reuters reports Boko Haram militants have slit the throats of 12 people in northeast Nigeria as the army was trying to evacuate civilians from the area. The Islamist group has been driven out of much of the huge swathe of territory they controlled at the start of the year, thanks to a concerted push by troops from Nigeria and neighbours Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

Teletica says experts from 27 of the UN’s World Meteorological Organisation member states, meeting in Costa Rica, have removed  “Isis” from the official list of names of future hurricanes.  The name of an ancient goddess of Egypt is now deemed inappropriate because of its association with the Islamic State militant group, which stands accused by UN war crimes investigators of committing brutal atrocities against civilians.

Sydney Morning Herald reports a woman paralysed two years ago in a holiday accident has been selected to compete for Australia later this year at the Canoe World Championships in Milan. Sam Bloom fell and broke her spine when she leaned against a loose balcony railing at a beach resort in Thailand in 2013. Able-bodied kayakers use their torso for strength and balance but Ms Bloom’s power and balance come solely from her arms.

A homeless man who has been living in a cardboard box in downtown Tampa, Florida, for over three years may soon have a modest-sized apartment and a pension check coming in every month. With the help of a policeman and homeless shelter case manager, John Helinski, 62, discovered a forgotten bank account that has been collecting Social Security disability benefits for years, he told ABC News today. Helinski is looking forward to having a place of his own to call “home” and thankful for the help he has received.

 

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