The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta features comments by the chairman of Air Malta that the airline will be able to stand on its feet by March, when the restructuring plan agreed with the EU expires.
The Malta Independent also reports on the Air Malta financial reports. It also says how a Moroccan man raped a boy for four years.
In-Nazzjon says a businessman, Ivan Zammit, is to file a complaint before the Constitutional Court claiming breach of his rights by the police.
l-orizzont says Air Malta's losses will be reduced from €16m to €4m next year. It also says that the former head of the Civil Protection Department in Gozo, Peter Mercieca, has been taken to court and accused of abuse of his powers.
The overseas press
AFP announces the EU and Turkey have reached agreement to stem the flow of refugees as Ankara agreed to tackle people-smugglers and take measures to keep more of the millions of refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict from crossing by sea to Europe. In exchange, EU leaders meeting in Brussels agreed to give the Turks more funds to tackle the problem and to speed up work to ease visa restrictions on Turkish citizens travelling to Europe.
Meanwhile, Le Soir says the EU has agreed to boost the bloc’s border agency Frontex, giving it responsibility to deport people who do not qualify for asylum. EU Council President Donald Tusk told reporters early this morning after the EU summit, that Frontex, would become a more “operational body”.
Bulgaria’s state news agency BTA reports Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov abruptly left the EU summit after reports of violence on the Bulgarian-Turkish border between border guards and refugees. The public BNR radio station said an Afghan migrant was shot dead. He was one of 48 who had entered from Turkey.
Ansa quotes UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon telling a joint session of the Italian parliament that all migrants, not just political refugees, deserved protection, help and support. He said all countries were obliged to shoulder the burden of welcoming migrants.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu countered the Palestinian Authority president’s account of the fate of a 13-year-old Arab boy videotaped bleeding and in pain on an East Jerusalem street. He accused Mahmoud Abbas of spreading “lies” after he claimed Israel had “executed” the 13-year-old Palestinian boy. Netanyahu said the boy had not been killed but hospitalised after being struck by a Jeep when he tried to stab a 13-year-old Israeli.
Rosemary Wolfe, whose step-daughter Miriam was among 270 people killed when Pan Am flight 103 went down over Lockerbie in 1988, told Sky News she had little hope that there would be “an enlightened moment” from any interview with the two men named by investigators in Scotland and the US to be involved in the case. Scottish officers and FBI agents want to travel to Tripoli to interview the two men, whose names have not been released.
Sole 24 Ore reports the Italian cabinet has approved a budget bill containing €30 billion of tax and spending cuts as well as other fiscal adjustments. It also allows workers two years from retirement, at the age of 63, to go on part-time contracts. Premier Matteo Renzi announced local councils would be free to spend on roads and schools as much as they wanted.
The Washington Post says some 80 million US retired seniors and people with disability will see no annual cost-of-living adjustment in their Social Security cheques in 2016 – unwelcome news that also will flatten benefit payments for retired federal workers and service members. It is the third time in 40 years that the Social Security Administration has not increased its payments. The raises are tied to the consumer price index (CPI).
AGI reports that a story of a child who broke the Holy Eucharist in two to give half to his divorced remarried father, who could not receive Holy Communion, has moved the bishops attending the Rome Synod ion the Family. The incident was recounted by a bishop who said he was celebrating Mass on the occasion of the first holy communion when it happened.
USA Today says a Texas man who killed a Dallas police officer in 2001 has been executed. Licho Escamilla was sentenced to death penalty for the fatal shooting of Christopher Kevin James, who was trying to break up the brawl when he was shot. He is the 24th convicted killer to be executed this year in the US, 12 of which have taken place in Texas.
Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune says a man who has spent the past 25 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit, has been release. Shawn Whirl, a 46 year-old Afro-American, was released after an appeals court in Illinois heard how, in an effort to make him confess to murdering a taxi driver, he was subjected to racist insults, slapped, stepped on and tortured. In 1991 he was sentenced to 60 years in prison.
CNBC announces that a rare letter written by Mozart to a close friend and renowned Austrian botanist has sold for $217,000 (€191,750) at an auction in the United States. The one-page signed note in German asks Nikolaus Joseph von Jacquin to return three music scores – Mozart’s Piano Quartet No.1 in G minor published in 1785, Violin Sonata No.33 in E-flat major from 1785, and Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello in G Major. Mozart finished the trio on July 8, 1786,
Bild says a message posted on Facebook by North Rhine Westphalia police, asking parents to “stop posting pictures of your kids on Facebook”, has gone viral. The message urged parents to protect their children becase “even your children have privacy”. It added that pictures of naked children on the beach or by the pool, posted on Facebook now, would embarrass them in later years when they grow older. It was read by over 11 million people, ‘liked’ by118,000 users and shared hundreds of thousands of times.
France Football quotes European football’s governing body UEFA giving its full support to its President, Michel Platini, while he fights to clear his name in a corruption scandal which engulfed him and FUFA President Sepp Blatter. Platini was suspended last week as part of an investigation into corruption allegations. Meanwhile, sources have told Sky News that Sheikh Salman Bin Ebrahim al-Khalifa, the Bahraini president of the Asian Football Confederation, is to stand for the FIFA presidency.