The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta quotes a senior civil servant saying that a legal exception invoked by the government in a deal with Bank of Valletta over the House of Four Winds “was never used for such a purpose before”. In another story, it quotes the Malta Football Association’s anti-corruption officer saying that monitoring of friendly football games to watch out for match-fixing has become more relevant after last May’s scandal in Italy.
The Malta Independent says a 13-year-old boy saved an infant from drowning at Marsalforn Bay yesterday after his grandmother got her leg stuck in a ladder and dropped the baby in the sea.
In-Nazzjon says that Malta has, for many years, been used as a stopover for the trafficking of diamonds, worth billions of euros, from Africa to Europe in a mafia led operation.
L-Orizzont says a planning authority decision on the building of a wall in Nadur is expected today after 12 years.
International news
Sputnik quotes a US official saying newly-discovered debris – a “flaperon” from the tailing edge of a Boeing 777 wing – belongs to the same type of aircraft as missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The new wreckage was found off the coast of Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean – some 380 miles off the coast of Madagascar. Crash investigators are hopeful that the piece will contain serial numbers which would link it to flight MH370. “Every manufacturer puts a data tag, or data plate, on every part that goes on an airplane,” former NTSB investigator Greg Feith told Wired magazine.
Kiev Post reports Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has vowed to push for justice despite Russia’s veto of a UN resolution that would have set up a tribunal to try those responsible for shooting down passenger flight MH17 over the former Soviet state. Ukraine accuses Russia of providing pro-Kremlin insurgents with a sophisticated missile that allegedly downed the Malaysia Airlines flight over rebel-held territory last year. All 298 people on board – most of them Dutch – died on the Boeing 777 flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. Kiev believes that the fighters mistook the airliner for a Ukrainian air force jet.
USA Today says a University of Cincinnati officer who shot a motorist during a traffic stop over a missing front license plate has been indicted on a murder charge, with a prosecutor saying the officer “purposely killed him” and “should never have been a police officer”. Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters announced the grand jury indictment at a news conference to discuss developments in the investigation into the July 19 shooting of 43-year-old motorist Samuel DuBose by Officer Ray Tensing.
The Jerusalem Post reports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved the “immediate” construction of 300 settler homes in the occupied West Bank, as his government came under pressure from right-wing Jewish groups. Settlements in the West Bank are viewed as major impediments to peace negotiations with Palestinians, who see the land as part of a future independent state, and Western nations have called on Israel to halt such projects. The US State Department said it was “deeply concerned” about the latest move and the ongoing occupation.
Kabul Post says Afghanistan said that Mullah Omar, the elusive leader of the Taliban movement fighting to topple the government, died more than two years ago. Omar had not been seen in public since fleeing when the Taliban was toppled from power by a US-led coalition in 2001, and there has been speculation for years among militant circles that he was either incapacitated or had died.
Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras took on dissenters within his own party, warning he would call an election unless backbenchers opposing a deal with creditors fall into line or quit. “I’m the last person who would want elections,” the 41-year-old premier said in an interview Wednesday with Sto Kokkino, a radio station linked to his party. Syriza’s central committee meets later today to decide the timing and logistics of an emergency congress after about a quarter of its lawmakers refused to back the prime minister’s deal with creditors in votes earlier this month.
Metro says animal-rights activists are pushing for African countries to stop trophy hunting after the 13-year-old collared lion was killed without a permit. UK-based charities Four Paws and Lion Aid called for an immediate ban on lion exports from African countries that allow hunting. US dentist Walter James Palmer, who paid $50,000 (€45,000) to track and shoot the lion, told Star Tribune he believed he had legally hunted the lion and that he didn’t know it was collared. Meanwhile, US police have opened an investigation into reported death threats against Palmer.
All India Radio announces India’s president and supreme court rejected last-ditch pleas to stay the execution of Yakub Memon over his role in the country’s worst-ever attack, clearing the way for him to be hanged. Jailed for his supporting role in the 1993 Mumbai bombings that killed 257 people, he has made many appeals and is scheduled to be hanged today – his 53rd birthday.
Nature reports astronomers have discovered the first auroras ever seen outside the solar system – alien light shows more powerful than any other auroras ever witnessed, perhaps a million times brighter than any on Earth. Until now, the brightest known auroras came from Jupiter, which has the most powerful magnetic field in the solar system. In comparison, these newfound auroras are more than 10,000 times — and maybe 100,000 times — brighter than Jupiter’s, Hallinan said.
The Vatican has come down harshly on the highly polluting effect caused by the production and disposal of plastic bottles. “Do away with plastic bottles across the world because of the harm they cause to the environment, as they represent a hurdle to the universal accessibility to water,” announced Vatican Radio. Instead of being recycled, at least two-thirds of plastic bottles end up in dumping areas, in water courses and oceans where they will never biodegrade completely.