The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports Malta’s view that a new EU law on the banks needs flexibility.
The Malta Independent says Tonio Fenech is optimistic that agreement on the new EU banks law would be reached by May 15. It also says that parkers are in talks with the government over proposed new rates.
In-Nazzjon says incentives for SMEs are creating jobs. It was reporting comments by SMEs minister Jason Azzopardi. It also highlighted the emergency services made available from today at St James hospitals in Sliema and Zabbar.
l-orizzont says pitkala vegetable market middlemen went out on strike because of the failure of reform.
The overseas press
The blind Chinese activist who sought sanctuary at the US embassy in Beijing after fleeing from house arrest has said he wants to leave his homeland. CNN reports that Chen Guangchen made a dramatic telephone appeal to go to the United States in a call broadcast live to a US congressional hearing, saying he was concerned most with the safety of his mother and brothers. News agencies citing the Daily Beast website said Chen wanted to leave China on the plane of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is in Beijing for talks with Chinese leaders. Chen left the US embassy on Wednesday after US officials said China had offered guarantees about his safety. He was taken to a hospital where he was reunited with his wife and children.
A threatened EU boycott of Euro 2012 football matches in Ukraine has been denounced by Kiev as a "destructive" attempt to politicise sport that would hurt mutual understanding and ties. Kiev Post says the statement came after the EU confirmed all its commissioners would skip next month's football events in the country to protest the treatment of its jailed former premier, Yulia Tymoshenko. Ukrainian authorities accused EU leaders of ignoring the interests of all Eastern Europeans with their boycott call. At least seven EU heads of state are further shunning a summit to be hosted by President Viktor Yanukovych in Yalta this month.
Pravda quotes Russia's top military officer threatening a pre-emptive strike if the US went ahead with plans to deploy a missile defence shield in Eastern Europe. At a conference on missile defence in Moscow, General Nikolai Makarov said European states should decide whether protection against a possible future threat from nations such as Iran was worth the risk of facing Russian weapons that would pose a "real threat" to countries hosting the facilities. He spoke ahead of a NATO summit in Chicago on May 20-21 at which the shield's first phase is to be declared up and running.
The Washington Times says newly released papers from Osama Bin Laden's hideout reveal a frustrated al-Qaeda leader struggling to control an unruly network. The documents seized during the raid on the Abbottabad compound were posted online by the research wing of the US military academy, West Point. The papers show he was unhappy with affiliates' attacks on fellow Muslims, urging them to target the US instead. Seventeen documents were released from a cache of more than 6,000.
USA Today says the authorities in Texas have charged two men with conspiring to harbour suspected illegal immigrants after 115 people were found inside three small houses close to the border with Mexico. Some of those released from the houses said they had not been given food or water for at least three days.
Officials on the Falkland Islands have criticised the Argentine government for broadcasting “a political advert” filmed on the islands without authorisation. The BBC says the advert features an Argentine athlete training in the Falklands, which Argentina claims as the Mulvinas, ahead of the London Olympics in July. It ends with the slogan: “To compete on English soil, we compete on Argentine soil”. Penguin News quotes Falklands legislator Ian Hansen dismissed it as a piece of "cheap and disrespectful propaganda".
The editors of all 19 editions of Vogue around the world have pledged to use only healthy models no younger than 16 on their editorial pages in an attempt to shift the fashion industry's approach to body image. Paris Vogue had caused an uproar in 2010 with a photo spread featuring a 10-year-old girl. Jonathan Newhouse, chairman of Conde Nast International and a scion of the New York publishing family that privately owns the world's most influential fashion title, said Vogue editors around the world wanted the magazines to reflect their commitment to the health of the models and the wellbeing of their readers.
Australian broadcaster ABC says a 97-year-old New South Wales man will set another world record today when he graduates with a Master of Clinical Science in Complementary Medicine, making him the world's oldest university graduate. It will surpass the Guinness World Record he set in 2006 when he completed a law degree. He completed his first degree at the University of Sydney in 1936. After a long career in dentistry, he went back to university to tackle law, finishing that degree at 91. Today’s degree will be his fourth.
Blesk reports that thieves in the Czech Republic have made away with a 10-tonne steel pedestrian bridge and about 200 metres of railway track in the latest case of scrap metal heists plaguing the country. They even managed to dupe police officers as they were dismantling the bridge, showing officers forged documents saying they were working on a new bicycle path. The stolen metal is valued at around €4,800 euros.