The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times and most of the other newspapers give prominence to the formal request made yesterday by Mahmoud Abbas for the Palestinian territories to be granted membership of the United Nations. It also reports clerical abuse victims were led to believe Church would give financial compensation.
The Malta Independent says that a protest by the clerical abuse victims has been called off. It also gives prominence to a protest held in Valletta yesterday against Syrian President Assad.
l-orizzont reports that the GWU has launched its annual general conference on the theme ‘strength in renewal’.
In-Nazzjon says that investment in informatics has opened a new chapter in education
The overseas press
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has made an impassioned plea for full membership of United Nations, saying it was a "moment of truth" for his people. The Wall Street Journal says he drew standing ovations when he addressed the UN General Assembly only moments after submitting a formal request for Palestinian statehood to UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon. Abbas said the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was the principal issue standing in the way of stability in the Mideast and accused the international community of denying his people a homeland for over six decades.
The New York Times reports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by saying Israel was renewing its hand of peace to countries such as Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, “but most especially, I extend my hand to the Palestinian people, with whom we seek a just and lasting peace”. Palestinians, he added, “should live in a free state of their own, but they should be ready for compromise” and “start taking Israel’s security concerns seriously”.
Aisha Gaddafi has said in an audio recording that her father was in high spirits and fighting alongside his supporters against the revolutionary forces who swept his regime from power. In a pre-recorded four-minute message, broadcast on the Syrian-based Al-Rai TV, she warned the Libyan people that the country's new leaders could betray them as they had “betrayed the pledge” they offered to her father. Aisha, her mother and two brothers fled to Algeria in August as rebels swept into Libya's capital. Her father's whereabouts is unknown.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for a unit of Libyan revolutionary fighters said they were planning a new attack on Bani Walid after two weeks of failed attempts to take the city under fierce resistance. Abdel-Salam Genouna told the Associated Press the brigade of fighters would try to enter the city from the south after failing to defeat Gaddafi supporters from a northern front line. More than 30 of the fighters have been killed in the effort.
Berliner Zeitung reports the Pope has met German victims of sexual abuse by priests and expressed “deep compassion and regret” at their suffering by members of the clergy. Benedict XVI met five victims – three men and two women – on the second day of his four-day state visit to his native Germany. The Pope assured the group that church officials were “seriously concerned” about dealing with crimes of abuse and were committed to enact effective measures to protect children.
CBS News reports the news that particles called neutrinos may travel faster than light has been met with shock, skepticism and excitement from physicists around the world since it was officially announced by the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (Cern). If true, the result would upend one of the cornerstones of physics – Einstein's theory of relativity. While the finding has rocked the scientific community, many researchers in Europe say they're a bit skeptical at this stage at the preliminary outcome.
Spanish news agency Efe reports that at least 13 people died and many others were injured as the north of Yemen's capital Sanaa was rocked by explosions and shelling. Reports said forces loyal to President Ali Abdullah Saleh clashed with armed men opposed to his rule. The violence came as Saleh returned from Saudi Arabia, calling for a ceasefire to stop violence which has claimed about 100 lives already this week.
The BBC quotes Amnesty International saying the decapitated and dismembered body of an 18-year-old girl, whose brother opposed Syria's regime, has been found by chance at a morgue in the city of Homs. Relatives had been called to the military hospital to pick up her brother's body three days after his arrest. Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther, said that if it was confirmed that the girl was in custody when she died, this would be “one of the most disturbing cases of a death in detention we have seen so far”.
Bild says a teenager who said he had been living in the woods for five years could have walked to Berlin from the Czech Republic. The 17-year-old, called Ray, turned up in the German capital claiming he did not remember where his family came from and had followed his compass north to reach the city. His identity and nationality remain unknown and Berlin police said today that although he speaks English “very well”, he may not be a native English speaker.
Southern Metropolis Daily reports the police in China have arrested a man accused of keeping six women in secret underground rooms as his sex slaves for two years and killing two of them. Li Hao allegedly kidnapped women who worked as hostesses at karaoke bars and locked them in two small rooms he had dug beneath a rented basement in Luoyang city in Henan province. Li only let some of the women out when he wanted them to perform sexual services for other men to earn money for him, the paper said. It was on one of these outings that one of the women escaped and went to the police.