The following are top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says Identity Malta staff were arrested in a raid yesterday as part of an investigation into the granting of residence permits.
The Malta Independent says Malta has tipped the scale as the 'fattest country in the EU'.
l-orizzont reports that the social partners in the MCESD agreed on the success of the economy.
In-Nazzjon says a government statement confirmed institutional corruption in the granting of residence permits.
The overseas press
EU leaders holding emergency talks in Brussels on the migration crisis have agreed to boost aid to Syria’s neighbours. Belgium’s Kanal Z quotes the meeting’s chairman Donald Tusk announcing early this morning they have pledged €1 billion to support Syrian refugees displaced in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. The EU would set up special reception centres for migrants in frontline states by the end of November. The leaders also agreed to tighten controls using EU-backed border personnel on the bloc’s external frontiers. Tusk predicted that the greatest tide of refugees coming to Europe was “yet to come”.
Radio Prague reports Czech Republic Prime Minister Bohuslav Sobotka has announced he would not challenge before the European Court of Justice the mechanism for relocating 120,000 refugees. Slovakia, on the other hand still intends to take the matter of the binding quotas to the Court. Bratislava’s opposing vote has led to a proposal by the leader of the Social Democrats in the European Parliament, Gianni Pittella, to suspend Prime Minister Robert Fico from the European Socialist Party (ESP).
Italy’s Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni has told Sky TG 24 that the final peace accord presented to Libya’s warring factions by the United Nations was a “new, important step forward in negotiations on a national unity government”. He also praised efforts by the Islamist-backed government in Tripoli and the internationally-recognized leadership based in the eastern city of Tobruk to reach a settlement to end years of turmoil in the oil-rich country.
USA Today says Pope Francis, who will address a joint session of Congress later today, is pushing Catholic hospitals and clinics to increase their free health care to the poor just as many House and Senate Republicans try to dismantle the Affordable Care Act, which provides health coverage to millions of low-income Americans. About one in six US patients is cared for in one of the 645 Catholic hospitals across the US.
Fox News reports that cheered by jubilant crowds across Washington, Pope Francis forged common cause with President Obama on climate change, immigration and inequality, as the pontiff signalled he would not sidestep issues that have deeply divided Americans. On his first full day in the United States, the pope also reached out to America’s 450 bishops, many of whom have struggled to come to terms with his new social justice-minded direction for the Catholic Church. He gently prodded the bishops to forgo “harsh and divisive language” while commending their “courage” in the face of the church’s sexual abuse scandal.
According to CBS News, on his first day in Seattle, Chinese President Xi Jinping assured top American and Chinese business leaders his country would work to remove barriers to foreign investment and improve intellectual property protections. He said that by the end of August, 65,000 US enterprises had invested a total of $76 billion in China, and emphasised that 1,600 Chinese companies were operating in America, creating 80,000 full-time jobs.
Caracol TV says the Colombian government and FARC rebels have announced a key breakthrough in their nearly three-year peace talks with the signing of a deal on justice for crimes committed during the five-decade conflict. The deal includes the creation of special courts and a broad amnesty.
The Dalai Lama has shocked his supporters all over the world saying that if his successor were to be a woman, she must have a “very, very attractive face”, otherwise she is “not much use”. The controversial comments were made during an interview with the BBC at the beginning of the Dalai Lama’s nine-day trip in London, where he is promoting human compassion and consideration as the route to happiness.
LBC reports a paralysed man has made medical history by walking again after doctors reconnected brain signals to his legs. The 26-year-old managed to walk nearly four metres without help and with what researchers described as “a high level of control”. After suffering a spinal cord injury in a motorbike accident five years ago, the American had been paralysed from the waist down.
Los Angeles Times reports a US federal judge has found that the song “Happy Birthday To You” is entirely in the public domain – a decision that could mean millions of dollars lost for the music publishing company that has been collecting on the copyright to one of the most widely sung songs in the world.