The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports how Mgr Charles Scicluna is the new auxiliary bishop of Malta. It also focuses on the 5+5 leaders’ meeting in Malta.
The Malta Independent reports how regional security, immigration and closer collaboration are being discussed in the 5+5 meeting.
l-orizzont leads with comments by Franco Debono and Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando against Infrastructure Minister Austin Gatt. It also says that the police are looking for the biological father of unborn twins in connection with the murder of a pregnant woman in Mgarr last week.
In-Nazzjon also leads with the opening of the 5+5 meeting.
The overseas press
VOA News reports two US planes carrying radical Muslim preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri and four other suspected terrorists are on their way to the United States. The planes left a military base late on Friday, hours after Britain's High Court rejected their last-minute appeals and cleared the way for their extradition. The five had raised legal questions about human rights and prison conditions they expected to face in the United States. In rejecting the appeals, the British court cited an "overwhelming public interest" in seeing the extraditions carried out.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has warned his country was “not far” from war with Syria as further cross-border skirmishes were reported. Hurriyet says that in a belligerent speech to a crowd in Istanbul, Erdogan warned the Assad government it would be making a fatal mistake if it picked a fight with Turkey. Not long after he spoke, the state-run Anatolian news agency reported the Turkish military had returned fire after a mortar bomb fired from Syria landed in the countryside in southern Turkey.
USA Today reports President Barack Obama and his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, have clashed on the meaning of September’s better-than-expected US jobless figures. The Labour Department says US unemployment showed a bigger than expected drop, from 8.1 per cent in August to 7.8 per cent in September. At a campaign rally in Virginia Friday, the president said the improved jobless number is a sign of progress in the country’s economy. Seeking votes from coal miners in the opposite end of the state, Romney said the lower jobless rate was the result of more Americans giving up their search for work and not being counted in the statistics.
France 24 says Cuban authorities have detained 22 activists, including blogger and regime critic Yoani Sanchez, as the trial of a Spanish politician charged with vehicular manslaughter in the July death of a prominent dissident gets underway. Spanish political activist, Angel Carromero has been accused of causing the car crash that killed Oswaldo Paya, one of the country’s best-known dissident. He denies the charge.
The New York Times reports UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has warned that ordinary Iranians were carrying the brunt of international sanctions designed to dissuade Iran to manufacture the nuclear bomb. In a report to the UN General Assembly, Ban said the sanctions had led to rising inflation, unemployment and shortages of essentials including medicines.
Mail & Guardian says the world's biggest platinum producer, Anglo American, fired 12,000 of its employees in South Africa on Friday, after they allegedly staged an illegal three-week strike. The tough measures come at a time when labour unrest is spreading in South Africa leading to 48 deaths.
Radio Formula announces that some 1,500 troops and federal police officers have been deployed to the northern Mexican city of Coahuila following the killing of Jose Eduardo Moreira Rodriguez, the son of the state’s former governor. His father, Humberto Moreira, was pushed out of the party's leadership last year amid accusations of mismanaging Coahuila's finances.
The Times says Britain’s Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt has revealed that he favours a ban on abortions after the 12th week of pregnancy – half the current limit of 24 weeks. The prime minister’s office said Hunt was expressing “a personal view”.
According to Metro, 12 police officers in France's crime-ridden Marseille appeared in court Friday on suspicion of corruption, extortion and drug dealing, with a prosecutor claiming there was "overwhelming" proof of guilt. Seven were locked up and five granted provisional release while French Interior Minister Manuel Valls announced he was suspending them and terminating their anti-criminal brigade team.
Sky News reports a three-week-old baby has been mauled to death by a pit bull in the US. The child was staying at the home of a family friend in Detroit when the two-year-old dog attacker her. The child had just been fed and was sitting in a car seat on the dining room floor when the dog managed to get into the house. Police removed the dog from the house and destroyed it. They described the baby's death as a tragedy and said no charges would be brought against the animal's owners.