The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports that hunting contributes €32 million to the economy.
l-orizzont says the former government dragged its feet on a scheme to promote waste recycling.
The Malta Independent says refunds of VAT on registration tax will be issued as a lump sum at the end of September.
In-Nazzjon reports that speculation is growing over who will be the new Bank of Valletta CEO.
The overseas press
EU ministers will meet on September 14 in Brussels to discuss the migrants’ crisis. Lux Post quotes the Luxembourg EU presidency saying in a statement that “the situation on immigration regarding the borders of the EU has recently taken the almost unprecedented proportions”. The decision to hold the summit followed an appeal by the home affairs ministers of France, Germany and Britain.
Meanwhile, British Home Secretary Theresa May has said Europeans must stop going to the UK if they did not have a job to “exploit” unemployment welfare, free health services and aid to families. Writing in The Sunday Times, May wrote, freedom of movement should be freedom to move with a job.
Metro says the 58 per cent of UK citizens support British Prime Minister David Cameron’s referendum on the country’s EU membership. A People and Power survey also revealed that 67 per cent of UK residents wanted more power in decision-making on laws, taxes, public spending and planning. Some 34 per cent said the United Kingdom’s economy would be better should the country exit the European Union.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has described as “scandalous” the attitude of some Eastern European countries towards the migrants’ crisis. In an interview with Europe 1TV, Fabius referred in particular to the barbed-wire wall between Hungary, the first country of the Schengen area, and Serbia, which is not an EU member country. He said the barrier “did not respect the common values of Europe.”
ORF TV announces three Syrian children and their families have disappeared from the Austrian hospital where they had been admitted for treatment after being found inside a van in which they were travelling together with 26 other migrants from Syria, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The children – two boys and a girl, aged between one and five years, were crushed at the bottom of the van.
Adnkronos reveals that an underage boy is among 10 people arrested in Palermo for the death of 52 refugees suffocated in the hold of a migrants’ boat. According to the prosecution, it was the boy who drove the boat.
Swiss authorities have confirmed a report in the NZZ am Sonntag that they were planning to send financial assistance to help Balkans nations cope with the massive numbers of migrants and refugees passing through in a bid to reach the European Union. According to the report, Bern plans to send more than €93,000 but a foreign ministry spokeswoman said the amount had yet to be determined.
And while Europe is experiencing the most dramatic refugee emergency since the war, even in the United States the issue of immigration inflames the 2016 presidential election campaign. Fox News reports Hillary Clinton had some harsh words for the right, accusing them of wanting to resort to mass deportations reminiscent of Nazi practices.
According to Mena, four Libyan soldiers were killed and 22 others were injured in Benghazi in violent clashes with ISIS militants. A Libyan military source said that clashes erupted in the district of Hawari, where the military attacked several jidahist positions, winning several areas of the zone.
The Daily Star reports Islamic State militants in Syria have severely damaged the Bel Temple, considered one of the greatest sites of the ancient world. The 2,000-year-old temple was part of the remains of the ancient caravan city of Palmyra in central Syria, seized by IS in May.
Al Ahram says Egypt’s Foreign Ministry has summoned the British ambassador in Cairo to protest comments he made after a judge sentenced three Al-Jazeera English journalists to three years prison each for reporting “false news”. The ministry said in a statement that John Casson’s comments were “unacceptable interference” in the country’s judiciary, and “incompatible with diplomatic norms and practices”.
Standard Times say the Sierra Leon authorities have arrested a businessman who is accused of enslavement and pillaging “blood diamonds” during the country’s civil war. Civitas Maxima, a Geneva-based organisation that provides legal representation for victims of war crimes, said that Michael Desaedeleer – who has dual American-Belgian citizenship – was arrested last week.
A grandson of South African icon Nelson Mandela, who was freed on bail in a child sex case, is being investigated for assaulting a woman. According to the Times Weekly, the alleged assault took place in the kitchen of Mandela’s former home in Johannesburg’s posh Houghton area. The alleged victim was identified as a 39-year-old musician. The same grandson is alleged to have raped a 15-year-old girl in a toilet at a popular pub in Johannesburg on August 7.
A couple did not take long to decide: either they gave their cat three more years of life or let it die. The Oki cat of 11 years, reports the ABC News, was very ill and needed a kidney transplant. The pair of Buffalo, in the US, drove more than six hundred kilometres and spent more than €27,000 to have a kidney transplant complex operation at the Pennsylvania Veterinary Hospital. The donor is the couple’s other cat family, two-year-old Cherry.