The front pages of the local newspapers this morning:
Times of Malta reported that traffic mayhem is expected in Malta in the coming week as the island hosts the EU-Africa migration summit.
L-orizzont carries the story of the worker who was seriously injured when he fell off the Valletta bastions yesterday.
In-Nazzjon quotes the Nationalist Party saying that the government should heed the economic concerns raised by the European Commission.
The Malta Independent reports that a Libyan man had been found guilty and sentenced for killing his wife Margaret Mifsud.
These are some of the world headlines from major news sources around the world:
Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Taiwan counterpart Ma Ying-jeou are in Singapore ahead of a historic summit – the first such meeting since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949. Channel News Asia says the hour-long closed-door meeting will be held at the Shangri-La hotel in the afternoon. Both sides will hold news conferences, followed by an official dinner.
NBC has reported that communications between Islamic State leaders in Raqqa, Syria, and their affiliates in the Sinai Peninsula included boasts about having downed a Russian passenger jet. NBC said they were told that the “chatter” included details of how the plane went down.
Separately, CNN showed a video released by IS that purports to show leaders in Aleppo congratulating their cohorts in Sinai on the tragedy. Sputnik says President Putin was the latest to suspend Russian flights to Egypt, suggesting that he too is considering that the cause of the disaster was deliberate.
According to Egyptian news agency MENA, President Abdel Fattah to Sisi and his Russian counterpart spoke by telephone and “agreed to resume Russian flights to Egypt as soon as possible”. They have also agreed to continue to cooperate to strengthen aviation security”.
French TV station France 2 wrote on its website that the sound of an explosion could be heard on the plane’s black boxes, and that investigators had ruled on engine failure. Official investigations have yet to confirm the cause of the crash, but the hypothesis that it was downed by a bomb is gaining weight as several countries have been cancelling flights, introducing new precautions, or issuing warnings to their citizens about travelling to the region known to some for its beachside resorts.
Pravda reports the Kremlin has condemned as “sacrilege” two cartoons, published in the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo, which made light of the plane crash that killed all 224 people on board, most of them Russian. One cartoon depicts a skull surrounded by debris and body parts, as the wreckage of the plane smoulders in the background. A caption reads: “The dangers of Russian low-cost airlines”. The second cartoon shows a passenger and debris from the plane falling through the air, as a caricature of a jihadist ducks for cover underneath. The cartoon is titled: “Daesh: Russian aviation intensifies bombardments”. Ordinary Russians have also taken to social media to express their outrage.
Cumhuriyet says at least 20 people suspected of links with Islamic State militants were arrested in Turkey on Friday, in a region due to host a major gathering of world leaders in a week’s time. ISIL-related materials are also said to have been seized in raids in the province of Antalya, where President Obama and President Putin are among those due to attend the G20 summit on November 15 and 16.
Reuters reports the Finnish coalition government said early this monring it had reached an agreement on how to reform the healthcare system in the Nordic country in order to restrain the expected increase of costs, avoiding the centre-right coalition’s break-up. Prime Minister Juha Sipila had threatened to break up his three-party coalition government after only five months in power if it could not reach agreement on healthcare reform by Friday.
The Washington Times says President Obama has rejected the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada in a victory for environmentalists who have campaigned against the project for more than seven years. He said the pipeline would not make a meaningful long-term contribution to the economy; it would not reduce gasoline prices for drivers, and shipping “dirtier” crude from Canada would not increase US energy security.
Pope Francis has attacked “profiteering” Catholic bishops, who instead of serving others as the Bible teaches, use other people and are attached to material wealth. Avvenire says he said in a sermon the true priest is the missionary who works for decades in Amazonia or in Africa, or who happily works in a hospital caring for the disabled “always with a smile on his face”. Francis stressed. His comments came days after two Italian journalists published new books depicting a Vatican plagued by mismanagement, greed, cronyism, and corruption. Corriere della Sera reports former TV news anchor Emilio Fede was indicted Friday on extortion charges. The 84-year-old allegedly blackmailed Mediaset executives with fake compromising photos when he was fired after 20 years at the head of TG4 news service.
It was “one small step for man…one giant leap for gender equality” when a team of Russian women emerged from a mock spaceship in Moscow on Friday, after eight days of isolation. Euronews says the six female volunteers – all with scientific or medical backgrounds – have been simulating a lunar flight, with Russia hoping to send a “manned” mission to the Moon in 2029. Researchers though at Moscow’s Institute of Biomedical Problems were interested in the effects of confinement on an all-female crew in simulated space conditions.