The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports that Mepa granted the power station development permit in a tense meeting. It also reports that the Court of Appeal confirmed the jail term imposed in November on former Chief Justice Noel Arrigo.
The Malta Independent also leads with the power station extension go-ahead by Mepa.
In-Nazzjon says the Mepa meeting on the power station was characterised by shouting and insults. Among other stories, it reports how a man was fined €500 for insulting the Pope on Facebook.
l-orizzont like the other newspapers also leads with the Mepa and the Appeals Court decisions. It also reports that 444 students have been affected by the suspension of EU funds for education programmes because of alleged maladministration.
The overseas press:
The Washington Times says the US Senate has passed a bill which creates new ways to watch for financial risks and makes it easier to liquidate large failing firms. The Senate passed the bill by 59 votes to 39. It must still be merged with a version in the House.
Börzen Zeitung reports that Europe battled divisions in its ranks over its debt crisis on Thursday as Germany ordered a crackdown on financial markets and protesters challenged austerity cuts in Greece and Spain. The markets fear and uncertainty measures, especially on the eve of the first meeting today in Brussels of the Task Force of European finance ministers, led to the European stock markets losing another €104 billion.
Berliner Morgenpost says Germany was poised to present proposals at today's Brussels meeting that would firm up the fiscal rules governing Europe - the Stability and Growth Pact. France and Germany have agreed that the pact had to evolve with "fewer rules, more transparency, more efficiency."
The Wall Street Journal announces US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner will visit Europe next week for emergency talks, amid fears that the continent's debt crisis could threaten the global economic recovery. His visit comes ahead of the G20 meeting in Toronto next month which is likely to focus on how the world's economic powers can coordinate financial regulation and respond to the crisis.
The Financial Times reports that British Prime Minister David Cameron, who took office a week ago, met French President Nicholas Sarkozy on Thursday on his first diplomatic visit. He announced the two leaders would work together to reform the banking system.
ABC says a 15-billion-euro austerity plan, announced by Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero last week, has been approved by the cabinet. Thousands of public sector workers took to the streets to protest against the measures which would slash their wages by 5 percent from June.
Athens Post reports thousands of protesters also took to the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki in a new general strike against the government's debt-dictated austerity measures. Public anger has grown at deep pension and salary cuts, as well as steep tax rises, imposed in an attempt to pull Greece out of an unprecedented debt crisis.
The journal Science anounces that A biologist in the US has created artificial life. Dr J Craig Venter has produced a single-celled creature with is entirely man-made DNA. The biological breakthrough has been compared with splitting the atom, but it has also been criticised as "playing God". Dr Venter says his team's techniques will help mankind.
Agence France Press reports the European Commission would urge EU nations to hike their targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions from 20 to 30 per cent, saying the costs and risks to industry are less than previously estimated. The total cost of such a move would be about 81 billion euros - 11 billion euros more than had originally been costed in for the 20 per cent emissions cut.
Le Monde says Interpol has stepped in to provide assistance in solving the Paris art theft mystery and was alerting its national bureaux around the world to the theft. A single masked intruder was caught on a video surveillance camera entering the Musee d'Art Moderne by a window and taking the paintings away. The paintings, works by Picasso, Matisse, Braque, Modigliani and Leger, are worth at least €100m.
Asian Times reports small-scale riots erupted right across northern Thailand, as angry Red Shirt supporters vented their ire at the violent dispersal of the main demonstration in Bagkok. Meanwhile, Thai troops were hunting down militants who went on a rampage of arson and looting in Bangkok, after the leader of the opposition "Red Shirts" called on supporters to halt the mayhem that has left many buildings in central Bangkok in ruins.
The Nation says a gay couple in Malawi have been sentenced to 14 years in prison after being convicted under the country's anti-homosexuality laws. The pair had been in custody since last December when they were arrested for holding a symbolic engagement ceremony.
Trouw reports that war crimes prosecutors aim to subpoena supermodel Naomi Campbell to testify over a "blood diamond" that ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor, on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity at The Hague since 2008, allegedly gave her.
The Irish Times says a pair of five-month-old separated twins Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf leave hospital today. The boys, who were joined from the chest to the pelvis, were separated in a 14-hour operation at London's Great Ormond Street Hospital last month. The boys' hearts were not joined, but all of their other major organs, including their liver, gut and bladder, were and had to be separated. They have one leg each. The twins are expected to have a "relatively normal, healthy life".