The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Sunday Times of Malta reports how a farmer has questioned a 'sinister' land deal which has robbed the farmer of her livelihood.
MaltaToday says the Gozo bishop's lack of action against a paedophile priest has infuriated clergy.
The Malta Independent reports that the public land in Zonqor will be rented to the American University of Malta on the cheap. It also says Bank of Valletta intends to stop its early retirement scheme.
It-Torca asks if PN attacks against members of the Gaffarana family stem from Richard Cachia Caruana since a Gaffarena fuel station was built on land owed by the Cachia Caruana family.
Il-Mument says the former Television House is to house the new local enforcement agency headed by former commissioner Ray Zammit. It also says the government is being pressured to reduce petrol and diesel prices.
Illum says former priest Carmelo Pulis, imprisoned for child abuse, has applied for parole.
KullHadd focuses on how communications will take place if there is an earthquake
The overseas press
European Parliament head Martin Schulz has launched a scathing attack on some European countries he accuses of failing to take in refugees. The German Social Democrat, said in an interview with the country’s Die Welt newspaper that amid the European blame game the Mediterranean Sea is being turned into a “mass grave” while “gruesome scenes” are being played out at borders.
In other development on the migration crisis, Euronews reports 683 migrants and refugees arrived in Sicily yesterday after being rescued from boats in the Mediterranean by the Italian coast guard. In Austria police stopped another truckload of refugees where three severely dehydrated children were among more than two dozen on board. In the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, hundreds again boarded trains bound for Serbia, many heading for other northern destinations.
Meanwhile, Libya Herald reports three people have been arrested in Zuwara suspected of helping launch a boat packed with migrants that sank, killing up to 200 people. The three were paraded before the cameras holding up pictures of drowned children. Residents, angry at the rising death toll among migrants, held a demonstration in the centre of the town protesting at the thriving people-smuggling trade in the area.
Kathimerini says Aegean people smugglers and traffickers, who used a yacht to hide a load of about 70 migrants, fired on members of Frontex, the European border guard, once they were discovered. In an attempt to evade capture, the yacht has also tried to ram the Frontex vessel. A 17 year-old refugee was killed in the shoot-out that followed.
Deutsche Welle reports thousands of people took to the streets of the German city of Dresden yesterday to send a message of welcome to refugees, after a string of violent anti-migrant protests in the region. Led by protesters holding a huge banner that read “Prevent the pogroms of tomorrow today”, the crowds marched peacefully through the eastern city under the watch of police in riot gear. “Say it loud, say it clear, refugees are welcome here,” they chanted.
According to Le Journal du Dimanche, top EU security and transport officials and the ministers France, Belgium, Britain, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland – meeting in Paris – have agreed to introduce multinational patrols and increased checks at railway stations in the wake of last week’s foiled jihadist attack. French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said checks would be carried out “everywhere it is necessary,” without divulging details.
The BBC reports the US has said it is “deeply disappointed and concerned” at the three-year jail sentences passed in Egypt on three al-Jazeera journalists. Echoing criticism from the UK, Canada and Australia, the US state department urged Egypt to “redress the verdict”. The reporters, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy, Egyptian Baher Mohamed and Australian Peter Greste, were convicted of “spreading false news”. Greste was deported to Australia this year and was tried in absentia.
Morocco’s Le Matin say Islamic militants have threatened to decapitate all those who opposed them in Sirte in Libya. Isis spiritual leader Hassan Karami, in a sermon in the mosque in Rabat where he proclaimed the Emirate of Sirte, also called on the people of Sirte to deliver their daughters to the fighters so that they would marry them.
Commemorations are taking place in the US city of New Orleans to mark the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. The Louisiana Weekly says that at a memorial service, Mayor Mitch Landrieu recalled how residents had turned to each other for support. Former President Bill Clinton is attending a concert in the city. Hurricane Katrina killed nearly 2,000 people and displaced one million.
Fox News announces the arrest of a New York woman on a murder charge after police say she killed her infant child and then lived in an apartment with the baby’s body for three months. Authorities say Christina Colantonio, 28, who has two other children, lived alone in the apartment. They believe she killed the child “shortly after” she gave birth about three months ago.
CNN reports a 30-year-old man has been charged with capital murder in the killing of a sheriff’s deputy who was gunned down from behind while filling up his patrol car at a suburban Houston gas station. Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman identified the man as Shannon J. Miles, who had a previous record including charges of resisting arrest and trespassing. He is charged with killing Darren Goforth, 47, a 10-year veteran of the force.
Meanwhile, Portugal’s Expresso says two police officers have been shot dead by a 77-year old in Quinta do Conde, 30 kilometers south of Lisbon. The agents had intervened after the report of a dispute between neighbours. The man and was arrested and transferred to hospital after trying to commit suicide.
Emirates 24 News reports the father of a 20-year-old woman let her drown in Dubai rather than let lifeguards rescue her for fear of she being dishonoured by getting touched by male rescuers. When the girl screamed for help, two rescue men were at the beach rushed to help the girl. However, the father started pulling and preventing them and got violent. He told them that he prefers his daughter being dead than being touched by a strange man. The father was arrested for not allowing rescuers to do their job.