The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.

Times of Malta says a hunter was jailed for one year and fined €5,000 after the court found him guilty of shooting a protected bird that fell into a school playground. In another story, the newspaper quotes a study by the World Health Organisation which says that air pollution costs the Maltese economy an annual €550 million in disease and death, killing an estimated 230 people a year.

In-Nazzjon reports about a find in Victoria by archaeologist Mark Attard a few days ago of what seems to be a complex of punic tombs.

The Malta Independent says the government is finding it difficult to move the monti into just one side of Ordnance Street, in a bid to avoid putting half the stalls right next to the new Parliament building.

MaltaToday quotes the hunters’ federation saying it would seek legal action over the Prime Minister’s decision to close the spring hunting season just days before it was due to end.

L-Orizzont says the General Workers Union unveiled a monument in Paola Square dedicated to those taken to court following the general strike ordered by the GWU on April 28, 1958, against the arrogance of the British imperial government.

International news

Jakarta Post reports Indonesia has executed by firing squad seven foreign drug convicts – four Nigerians, two Australians and a Brazilian – together with an Indonesian, stirring a storm of international anger. A Filipina was spared at the eleventh hour after a woman suspected of tricking her into carrying drugs to Indonesia turned herself in to authorities in the Philippines. A French citizen, who was originally to be executed with the group, was granted a temporary reprieve pending a decision on a legal appeal.

ABC says Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot announced he would withdraw his ambassador to Indonesia. Amnesty International also condemned Jakarta’s executions and called on Canberra to continue speaking out against capital punishment.

O Globo says the Brazilian government expressed “deep dismay” over the execution of the Brazilian prisoner. According to his family, Rodrigo Gularte has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, making him unsuitable to face the firing squad.

Radio Nepal has announced the Nepalese authorities have declared three days of mourning for the victims of Saturday’s earthquake in which more than 5,000 people are now known to have died. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala said the government was doing all it could but was overwhelmed by the scale of the catastrophe. Rescuers were still struggling to bring aid to remote Himalayan areas and heavy rain was worsening the plight of hundreds of thousands of people camped out in the open.

EurActiv reports the European Commission has proposed an anti-terror cell after increased threats following attacks in Paris, Copenhagen and Brussels. EC First-Vice President Frans Timmermans told MEPs on Tuesday that EU members must work more closely together on anti-terrorism and other security concerns.

Al Watan quotes Mansour al-Turki, spokesman for Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry, saying that since December last year officials had arrested 93 people suspected of belonging to the Islamic State (IS) militants. At least 77 of these were Saudi nationals wanted for planning terror strikes, including bombing the US embassy in Riyadh, which the Saudi security agencies had foiled.

ISIS may use migrant boats to get terrorists into Italy and in Europe, and buy weapons on the black market, the Libyan ambassador to the Holy See, Mustafa Rugibani told AGI in an exclusive interview.  He appealed to Italy to help rebuild the Libyan army with equipment and military training, adding that Europe’s support for the government and the Libyan army was vital to defeat the jihadists of the Islamic State and end the smuggling of migrants.

Il Tempo reports Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi yesterday dared parliament to send him packing after Reform Minister Maria Elena Boschi called a confidence vote on the government’s hotly contested “Italicum” electoral reform bill, sparking protests from the Lower House floor. The first of three votes is scheduled for this afternoon with the other two to be held on tomorrow. Critics argue the Bill would give overwhelming power to the executive, weakening parliamentary democracy.

Ilta Sanomat says Finnish President Sauli Niinisto has accepted the resignation of Prime Minister Alexander Stubb and asked Centre Party leader Juha Sipila to form a new government. Sipila, a 53-year-old billionaire and a new face to Finnish politics, said he expected to garner a majority coalition “of at least three parties” by next week.

VOA News reports President Barack Obama has said police violence against African-Americans was a “slow-rolling crisis” but emphasised that those who looted and started fires on Monday “should be treated like criminals”. The rioting came after the funeral of Freddie Gray, a black man fatally injured in police custody in Baltimore. A week-long curfew has been announced after more than 100 cars were set alight and 15 buildings destroyed.

Radio Nigeria says government troops have rescued nearly 300 girls and women during an offensive against Boko Haram militants in the northeastern Sambisa Forest. However, the military said they did not include any of the schoolgirls kidnapped from Chibok a year ago.

Corriere della Sera reports a Milan judge has sentenced three people to prison terms of between 18 and 24 months and sent 56 other former Lombardy regional councillors to trial in a case regarding alleged abuse of expense claims. The defendants, accused of embezzlement and fraud, include Renzo Bossi, son of the founder of Lega Bord, and ex-premier Silvio Berlusconi’s former dental hygienist, Nicole Minetti. Last year Minetti was convicted on appeal of aiding and abetting prostitution in connection with so-called “bunga bunga” parties.

According Mediapart, National Front founder Jean-Marie Le Pen has a “hidden treasure”: €2.2 million stashed away in a bank account in Switzerland’s HSBC bank. The French online investigative and opinion journal says he had placed the funds through a trust placed under the legal responsibility of his butler, Gérald Gérin.

Expresso says a former Portuguese detective Goncalo Amaral has been ordered to pay $500,000 to Gerry and Kate McCann following a libel case over claims he made in his book “The Truth Of The Lie” that they were involved in their daughter Madeleine’s disappearance in Praia da Luz on the Algarve in 2007. The Lisbon court also banned further sales of the book.

A married woman cannot resist the sexual advances of her husband “even if they are riding on a camel”, according to a Muslim cleric in Malaysia. Malay Mail says the fatwa (religious edict) sparked a wave of controversy. Perak Mufti Tan Sri Harussani Zakaria decreed the spouse of a Muslim woman “the right” to claim a relationship with her in any condition, adding that “in marriage there are no things such as rape”.  

 

 

 

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