The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times reports how UEFA declared a Maltese player guilty in the Norway-Malta match fixing scandal.
The Malta Independent says Marsaxokk campers were angered by the 24 hour eviction notice handed to them yesterday.
l-orizzont reports that a director in the Resources Ministry who abused of public funds was promoted instead of being reprimanded.
In-Nazzjon says that 900 persons with disability are working full time and 250 part-time.
The overseas press
South Africa’s Mail & Guardian reports President Jacob Zuma has announced a commission of inquiry after the police opened fire on several thousand striking miners on Thursday. Police say 34 people were killed, 78 wounded and over 250 arrested. The president of the unofficial trade union behind the strike for better wages said an international independent inquiry would be more appropriate. As angry and concerned women protested near the site of the shooting outside Johannesburg, police said they had no mechanism in place for families to determine whether their loved ones were among the dead and injured. The dead have not, as yet, been identified.
The BBC reports the Organisation of American States has called a meeting of foreign ministers next Friday to discuss the diplomatic stand-off between Britain and Ecuador. All members apart from the US, Canada and Trinidad and Togo agreed to discuss the crisis over the Julian Assange case. Ecuador has granted political asylum to the WikiLeaks founder who took refuge at Ecuador's embassy in London in June. Earlier, Ecuador said it would file a motion to the organisation urging it to condemn UK threats to enter its embassy.
According to Sky News sources, the British Government is trying to defuse escalating diplomatic tensions with Ecuador over the Assange case. Foreign Office sources said a senior official had spoken to the Ecuadorian ambassador in London on Thursday but they declined to divulge the contents of what they described as “a private conversation". Assange spent his first full day in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since being granted political asylum by the country's government. The WikiLeaks founder dubbed the move as a "significant and historic victory" and tweeted that he would thank his followers outside the embassy this Sunday.
EuroAsia reports that the Russian Orthodox Church has called for clemency for the Russian Punk band “Pussy Riot” after they were sentenced to two years in jail by a Moscow Court for staging a protest last Marchagainst President Vladimir Putin in Moscow's main cathedral. The US, the UK and the EU have criticised the sentences as "disproportionate". Amnesty International has described them as a "bitter blow for freedom of expression" in Russia.
Algerian statesman Lakhdar Brahimi has been named as the United Nations/Arab League Joint Special Representative for Syria. He replaces outgoing envoy Kofi Annan, who resigned two weeks ago amid frustration with lack of progress toward peace in the war-torn country. In an exclusive interview with France 24, Brahimi said he was hoping to get support from the long-divided UN Security Council to resume international efforts for a diplomatic solution to the conflict in Syria. The 78-year-old diplomat served as Algerian foreign minister and also special U.N. representative for Afghanistan and Iraq.
A House of Commons investigation into the rigging of rates at which banks lend money to each other has strongly criticised Barclays Bank for lack of internal controls over several years. The Financial Times reports the MPs also said Bob Diamond, who resigned as the bank’s head last month, provided “highly-selective evidence” to the committee. They have demanded wide-ranging changes in the wake of the scandal, which emerged in June when the UK and US authorities fined Barclays bank £290 million (€356.35 million).
Huffington Post says the trial of a US army major accused of killing 13 colleagues at Forth Worth in Texas three years ago has been postponed indefinitely due to a dispute about his beard. The court martial refused to hear his case unless he was clean-shaven in line with army regulations. But lawyers for Major Nidal Hassan say his Muslim faith precludes this.
In an interview with Italian magazine Gente, former Harrods boss Mohamed Al Fayed has once again pointed a finger at the British Royal Family – particularly Prince Philip – and intelligence services in connection with the death of his son Dodi and Princess Diana. Fifteen years after the accident in Paris, Al Fayed, who had rejected the findings of two inquiries, said "there was one cover-up after another”, but vowed to continue to fight so that the truth would emerge. Al Fayed claims that Diana was “a strong and courageous woman”, but in front of her father-in-law she was more than “terrified”. He says he had written her letters which made her write a note that she feared for her life because her husband, Prince Charles, was planning to kjill her in a traffic accident.
Elvis Presley's grandchildren all have show business in their blood, but their mother Lisa Marie Presley said Friday she hoped they would succeed at whatever they chose to pursue. AFP reports Presley, 44, discussed her iconic rock 'n' roll father, who died 35 years ago this week, alongside her mother Priscilla during a half-hour talk before Elvis fans at the annual Elvis Week festivities at the family's Graceland mansion in Memphis, Tennessee. Lisa Marie had her older children – Riley, 23 and Benjamin, 19 – with her first husband, musician Danny Keough, and the youngest ones – three-year-old twins Harper and Finley – with her current spouse, music producer Michael Lockwood. She was also married to the late Michael Jackson and actor Nicolas Cage.