The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports that parent-child crime is common in Malta according to a study among prison inmates.
The Malta Independent says study conclusions had contradicted the prime minister's claims on Zonqor Point hatchery claims.
In-Nazzjon leads with an appeal by the Nationalist Party for the Security Committee to meet with urgency. It also reports how an Air Malta flight was delayed by 12 hours.
l-orizzont says new technology for wind energy is to be introduced in Malta. It also says Grand Master de Valette's sword and dagger at the Louvre are in a bad state.
The overseas press
The BBC reports Asian stocks continued to fall this morning but the drop was less severe than analysts had feared after yesterday’s dramatic global sell-off. Japan’s Nikkei 225 took the hardest hit in the region, down by three per cent. Ongoing fears over the health of the Chinese economy have driven the falls. Investors are worried that firms and countries which rely on high demand from China – the world’s second largest economy and the second largest importer of both goods and commercial services – would be affected.
The New York Times says the UN Security Council has heard testimony from Syrian and Iraqi gays detailing their terror-filled lives under IS, marking the first council meeting dedicated to LGBT rights. Homosexuals in Idlib have long been the target of violence in Syria, first by the government, then by the al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, and finally by IS jihadists who took control of the city in 2014. IS jihadists have claimed responsibility for at least 30 executions for sodomy.
A state of panic has hit ISIS’s leadership in Syria’s Deir Ez-Zor, not from the efforts of the US-led airstrikes to wipe them out, but from two Moroccan women who have reportedly spread the AIDS virus among the terror group’s ranks. According to ARA News, 16 fighters have tested positive for the virus, after having sex with the two women. Meanwhile, the two women have reportedly escaped to Turkey “for fear of execution by IS”. The terror group has been known to respond to the threat of AIDS with executions.
CNN quotes a senior Democrat revealing US Vice President Joe Biden has received President Obama’s “blessing” to enter the 2016 presidential race, if he chooses to do so. Anonymous sources say the President made clear he would not counsel Biden against running. White House officials had expected Hilary Clinton to be the Democratic nominee after Obama appeared to give his tacit approval, saying she would be an “excellent president”.
French President François Hollande has expressed support for Germany’s call for a common European policy on asylum. Deutsche Welle quotes him saying the current wave of migration from conflict areas in the Middle East into the European Union required a coordinated response by the 28-member bloc. Merkel and Hollande also called on the EU to agree on a common list of “safe countries of origin” – something that is meant to help speed up the return of migrants not in need of protection from conflict or political persecution.
Corriere della Sera says hundreds of African migrants scuffled with police and briefly blocked a major road in Italy’s financial capital Milan y in a protest against their living conditions and their long wait for authorisation to seek work. Chanting “documents, documents”, some 300 migrants held up traffic on a main route into the city, with riot police called in to push the men back into their near-by temporary camp, where they are awaiting registration and identity papers.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 migrants and refugees have arrived in Hungary – the first of around 7,000 who found their gruelling journey to Europe blocked when Macedonia declared a state of emergency last week. An AFP photographer said the group, most of them refugees from war-torn Syria, were met by Hungarian police who escorted them to a nearby refugee registration centre.
Times of Israel says the country’s Interior Ministry has banned 1,200 African asylum seekers, set to be released from the controversial Holot detention centre this week, from travelling to the city of Tel Aviv and the port city of Eilat.
La Hora reports Guatemalan prosecutors have formally charged former vice president Roxana Baldetti with corruption – three days after she was arrested for allegedly masterminding a customs bribery ring with President Otto Perez.
Global quotes Canadian police saying the hacking of the cheating website Ashley Madison has triggered extortion crimes and led to two unconfirmed reports of suicides. The news came as the company behind Ashley Madison is offering a €327,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of members of a group that hacked the site.
Malay Mail say a Malaysian Muslim cleric has unleashed a wave of controversy after issuing a fatwa (religious edict) saying that a married woman cannot resist the sexual advances of her husband “even if they are riding a camel”. According to the religious Muslim, in marriage there is no such thing as rape, saying that this was “an invention of the Europeans”. Malay Mail readers and users of social networks have reacted to the fatwa with an avalanche of protests.
Singer Celine Dion said during a heartbreaking interview with USA Today that her husband Rene Angelil wants to die in her arms. Angelil, 73, has throat cancer and has been fed intravenously for two years.