The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports how an Italian man who admitted association to traffic drugs has claimed discrimination in efforts by prosecutors to have him jailed for several years. The newspaper also quotes Joseph Muscat insisting yesterday that the PL will keep its promises.
The Malta Independent says the PN decision on alternate districts for its main election candidates is still in the balance.
l-orizzont reports that Nationalist MP Stephen Spiteri never declared his assets in parliament. It also says that no compensation is being offered to parkers as car parks are privatised.
In-Nazzjon leads with the reopening of the school year.
The overseas press
VOA reports US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has said the word needs to join together to stop extremists from trying to undermine the advance of democracy in the strife-torn countries of North Africa and the Middle East. She was speaking in New York at the Clinton Global Initiative, the annual forum on global affairs led by her husband, former US President Bill Clinton. She is in New York meeting with several leaders as they arrive for the annual UN General Assembly.
Tripoli Post says the Libyan military has replaced the heads of two of the most powerful militias in Benghazi as it attempts to re-assert control over armed groups in the city or disband them. The moves came after mass demonstrations against armed groups in Benghazi, which followed the killing of the US Ambassador to Libya Chris Davies and three other Americans earlier this month in troubles over an American video which insults Prophet Muhammad.
The Washington Post quotes Pentagon officials saying two US marines, filmed urinating over dead Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, are to be court-martialled. The two staff sergeants were among several men in combat gear seen relieving themselves on the bodies in a video posted online last January. They also face charges of failing to report misconduct by junior marines. Three other marines have already been disciplined.
The Daily Express leads with the European Court of Human Rights rejection of the final appeals by the radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza and four other terrorism suspects against extradition from Britain to the United States. Abu Hamza faces charges in the US of planning an Al Qaeda-style training camp in Oregon and assisting hostage taking in Yemen. He has been serving a seven-year jail sentence in Britain for inciting hatred. The court denied the men would face inhumane treatment if transferred to the US.
The Wall Street Journal reports the head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Christine Lagarde, has called for urgent action from Europe and the United States to turn around a slowing global economy. She said eurozone countries had to hasten the establishment of a single banking mechanism and introduce reforms to become more competitive. Lagarde warned that the IMF was about to cut its already-low global growth forecast for 2013, saying Europe and the US posed critical risks to the world economy.
Al Ahram says that an Egyptian court has sentenced to death by hanging 14 members of a militant Islamist group for a deadly attack on security forces in the Sinai Peninsula last year. Egypt's State Security Emergency Court also confirmed life sentences against four other members of the banned militant group Al-Tawhid Wal Jihad, over the attack.
El Universal reports that the Mexican armed forces have arrested 35 police officers accused of having links with one of the country’s most powerful drug cartels, the Zetas. A turf war between the Zetas and rival criminal organisations has led to some of Mexico’s worst massacres in recent years.
A US biologist is to face life in prison without parole for murdering three colleagues and wounding three others in a 2010 shooting spree. CBS News says a jury deliberated for about 20 minutes before convicting 47-year-old former University of Alabama, Huntsville, scientist Amy Bishop. Apparently angry at being denied tenure in her department, Bishop opened fire at a faculty meeting. She avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty earlier in September.
Le Point reveals that Laurence Pieau, the director of the French magazine Closer, has received some 50 menacing messages include some threatening death. Closer was the first to publish pictures showing Kate Middleton, Britain’s Prince William’s wife, topless. Pieau has not filed an official complaint but limited herself to make the police know of the threats. It was unclear whether the police were offering her protection.
A Sicilian court has awarded the sum of €4.5 million to a man whose wife and baby daughter died in childbirth 20 years ago. Il Giornale di Sicilia reports that the court found that the death in 1992 of Andrea Bellanca's wife, 40-year-old Maria, and the couple's baby girl Martina in Agrigento had been caused by "medical incompetence".
The BBC says doctors in Britain have alerted health authorities worldwide about a new respiratory virus similar to SARS with a potential to kill. A man from Qatar is being treated in hospital after picking up the infection in the Middle East.