The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.

The Times reports how a woman was fatally stabbed in St Paul’s Bay yesterday. The newspaper also carries an interview with Suha Arafat about the exhumation of her husband, held yesterday.

The Malta Independent says the social partners have warned of consequences if the Budget is shot down.

l-orizzont leads with yesterday’s murder, saying a woman suffered 40 blows with a pair of scissors. It also quotes the GWU saying the government had ignored most of its Budget proposals.

In-Nazzjon quotes Finance Minister Tonio Fenech saying that today’s Budget will be a realistic exercise reflecting the times.

The overseas press

Börzen Zeitung reports that the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development argued yesterday Eurozone nations should be prepared to ease up on deficit reductions to avoid pushing the single currency area into a deeper slump. The think-tank issued the call as it unveiled its latest growth forecasts, which showed the eurozone contracting by 0.1 per cent in 2013, after a 0.4 per cent shrinkage this year.

The Washington Post says the American ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, hotly tipped to replace Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, has admitted releasing incorrect information after September's attack on the American consulate in Libya. She said there had been no attempt to mislead the public, but Republicans were unconvinced and after meeting her on Tuesday, senators said they were troubled. The envoy said her initial line that the Benghazi attack appeared to have sprung from a protest had been wrong.

Fox News reports that more than 200,000 people chanting and "erhal, erhal" –"leave, leave" – have packed Cairo’s Tahrir Square in the biggest challenge yet to Egypt's first freely elected President Mohammed Morsi. The protests were sparked by edicts Morsi issued last week that effectively neutralised the judiciary. Clashes broke out in several cities, with protesters pelting each other with stones and firebombs.

ABC quotes investigators who exhumed the body of former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat saying it could be months before they know if he was poisoned. The Palestinian leader's body was exhumed for only a few hours, enough time for investigators to gather samples to test whether he died of radioactive polonium poisoning. Many Palestinians believe he was poisoned by Israel, a charge it has repeatedly denied.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas will address the UN General Assembly tomorrow before a vote to secure an upgrade in status to that of a non-member state. VOA quotes Palestinian Ambassador Riyad Mansour saying the resolution had nearly 60 co-sponsors but there are expected to be several European abstentions, and some "no" votes, including from the United States and Israel, which oppose unilateral Palestinian action toward statehood.

Magyar Hirlap says protesters have rallied outside Hungary's parliament building in Budapest against a far-right politician after he proposed the compilation of a list of Jewish residents for security purposes. The remarks followed a political debate over the Israeli-Gaza conflict.

Saudi Times reports security forces detained dozens of men, women and children who were staging a rare protest outside a human rights group’s office in Riyadh to demand the release of jailed relatives. Saudi Arabia, which bans protests, says the prisoners were all held on security grounds. Activists said some had also been detained for purely political activity and have never been charged.

Gazete Oku says NATO officials are in Turkey to plan a proposed Patriot missile deployment. Turkey has said putting the missiles along its border is a "purely defensive" move to protect against spill-over Syrian civil war violence. Manwhile, activists said Syrian government warplanes targeted an olive press factory near the city of Idlib Tuesday, in the country's north, killing at least 20 people. They say dozens more have been wounded. More than 40,000 people are estimated to have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March last year.

Expresso reports the Portuguese parliament has approved a highly unpopular budget for next year. All opposition parties refused to throw their weight behind the 2013 austerity programme as hundreds of people protested against the budget outside the parliament building in Lisbon. Next year's budget aimed at reducing Portugal's public deficit will cost the majority of workers the equivalent of at least a month's wage due to a hefty income tax hike. In addition, there will be massive cuts in the country's pension and health systems.

The Irish Times says the Irish government would clarify its abortion policy by the end of the year after publishing a long-overdue report on the issue. The document from an expert group, intended to clarify when abortion should be allowed in cases where a woman’s life is deemed to be at risk, is due for debate in Parliament this week.

According to The Evening Chronicle, the lover of an English photographer who infected her with HIV has said she will stand by him after he was jailed for doing the same to an ex-girlfriend. Les Pringle (aged 48) from Tynemouth, was jailed for three and a half years at Newcastle Crown Court for inflicting grievous bodily harm on a woman known as 'X'. He had unprotected sex with her, despite knowing he had HIV and being told by doctors that he could pass on the virus. After the case, it emerged another woman has been infected, but that she is standing by her lover.

CNN reports tobacco companies in the US have been ordered by a federal judge to publicly admit, through advertisements and package warnings, that they deceived American consumers for decades about the dangers of smoking. Federal Judge Gladys Kessler issued her ruling in one of the last legal steps settling liability in the long-running government prosecution of cigarette makers. Several other lawsuits over cigarette labelling are pending in federal court, part of a two-decade federal and state effort to force tobacco companies to limit their advertising, and settle billions of dollars in state and private class-action claims over the health dangers of smoking.