The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports how a missing fisherman was successfully rescued yesterday. The 58-year-old reported that he was lost in fog.
The Malta Independent argues about having fixed term elections. It also quotes the Archbishop saying yesterday that Christian values should not be just a cliché but the pillar of society.
l-orizzont highlights the plight of a three-year-old boy from Safi who is battling leukaemia and is finding generous help from the people of the village.
In-Nazzjon says Maltese nurses are being training in the administration of chemotherapy by the Royal Marsden Hospital.
The overseas press
Libya Herald reports at least three people dead and 20 others wounded in Benghazi as hundreds of Libyan armed demonstrators forced members of the Islamist Ansar al-Sharia militia out of their base in Benghazi. The protesters stormed the group's military compound and set it on fire and took arms, ammunition and computer material. The assault came as an estimated 30,000 people rallied against the influence of the militias in the city. Ansar al-Sharia has been linked with the incident which claimed the life of a US ambassador Chris Davies and three other Americans.
Dawn says that at least 15 people were killed and more than 200 wounded in Pakistan during violent protests on Friday condemning a US-made film insulting Islam, defying a government call for only peaceful demonstrations. Nine people were killed in Karachi, the country’s largest city, and four in the northwestern city of Peshawar. The combined total of wounded in Karachi, Peshawar and in the capital Islamabad was 229. Three cinemas and three private banks were also set alight in Karachi. Other demonstrations were held in Iraq, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Germany and the UK. Protest marches were banned in France and Tunisia.
Wall Street Journal reports Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney paid $US1.9 million in taxes on more than $US13 million in income – an effective tax rate of 14.1 per cent. Tax records for last year, made public in a bid to counter allegations that he pays too little tax, show he paid an effective federal tax rate of at least 13.6 per cent annually over 20 years. President Obama has used Romney's refusal to release more returns as support for his argument that his challenger is out of touch with the lives of everyday Americans.
Straits Times says the World Trade Organisation has slashed its 2012 global trade outlook, citing the eurozone debt crisis and weak growth in the US and China as key factors. Global trade is now expected to grow 2.5 per cent in 2012 compared with a previous forecast of 3.7 per cent, the WTO said in a statement released in Singapore. It also cut its global trade growth outlook for next year to 4.5 per cent from 5.6 per cent.
The Law Institute of Victoria has called for the establishment of an independent authority to examine how religious organisations respond to cases of child sex abuse. Radio Australia reports that the suggestions came as the Catholic Church in Victoria revealed, in a submission to a state parliamentary inquiry, that at least 620 children had been abused by clergy members since the 1930s. It is the first time the church has publicly released the figure. The Archbishop of Melbourne Denis Hart said the church would cooperate fully with the inquiry.
The Los Angeles Times says the US space shuttle Endeavour has taken its final flight, making a spectacular series of flypasts over California before landing in Los Angeles – its retirement home where it would go on display on October 30. Endeavour, which flew more than 185 million kilometres in its two-decade career, completed its final mission last year.
Yoko Ono has awarded the Russian punk band Pussy Riot this year’s LennonOno grant for peace. Moscow Times says she presented the award to Pyotr Verzilov, husband of one of three imprisoned members of Pussy Riot sentenced in August to two years in prison for performing an irreverent song mocking Russian President Vladimir Putin inside Moscow’s main cathedral. At a ceremony in New York City, Ono said the girls “were just standing for freedom of speech”. The LennonOno Grant for Peace is given every two years to honour Yoko Ono’s late husband John Lennon’s dedication to peace and human rights.
ABC reports Melbourne researchers have made a discovery they say offers hope to women whose fertility might be affected by cancer therapy or premature menopause. They found that two proteins make egg cells die in the ovaries when their DNA is damaged by radiation or chemotherapy. That can make women infertile. Dr Clare Scott of the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute says egg cells that were missing the PUMA protein survived the radiation and repaired their DNA. The finding might lead to new strategies to protect fertility, by blocking the proteins.