The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times leads with an EU report that Malta's financial system is safe. It also says that Mepa fees have been cut by an average of 25%
The Malta Independent says the 2013 Budget finally got the thumbs up.
In-Nazzjon refers to the approval of the Budget and says the Opposition is seeking the best interests of the country. It also says Mepa was stopped from discussing an application for a waste treatment plant in Ghallis.
l-orizzont focuses on the severance pay packet given to Richard Cachia Caruana, quoting the foreign minister saying it was 'obscene'.
The overseas press
The Korean crisis will be high on the agenda when foreign ministers from the G8 group of nations hold talks in London later today. The BBC reports Japan, present at the talks, is looking for a strong statement of solidarity over the issue. North Korea has been making bellicose threats against South Korea, Japan and US bases in the region. Ministers will also debate the Syrian crisis, Iran's nuclear programme and sexual violence in conflicts. The first day of the G8 meeting has wrapped up with the leaders having mainly focused on the conflict in Syria. On the sidelines of the talks, foreign ministers met with Syrian rebels who renewed appeals for lethal aid.
NBC says the United States has warned North Korea it is skating a “dangerous line” with an expected missile launch that could start a whole new cycle of escalating tensions in a region already on a hair-trigger. South Korean and US forces remain on heightened alert with both experts and officials suggesting a launch was likely in the build-up to April 15 birthday celebrations for the North's late founder Kim Il-Sung. It might also coincide with visits by US Secretary of State John Kerry and NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who will both be in Seoul on Friday.
The Irish Independent announces that eurozone and EU finance ministers meet from Friday in Dublin to put finishing touches on the Cyprus bailout, and also to consider extending debt repayment dates for Portugal and host Ireland, as well as tackling how to stamp out tax fraud. The ministers from the currency area gather first on Friday morning, and later they are to be joined by non-euro, European Union peers. Europe's central bankers will enter the fray thereafter for talks wrapping up on Saturday. A renewed drive to stamp out tax fraud, launched amid a tax-haven scandal currently embroiling French President François Hollande's government, is also likely to feature prominently. During EU bailout negotiations in March, Cypriot banks came under scrutiny in part for the many foreign depositors allegedly hiding money there from their own tax collectors. Another scandal surfaced last week when several Western newspapers published leaked information pointing to offshore accounts held by 130,000 prominent figures around the world.
Meanwhile, France 24 reports President François Hollande has moved to restore confidence in French public life after the country’s former Budget Minister Jérôme Cahuzac was charged with fraud. Hollande has introduced a raft of measures, which would require banks to declare all subsidiaries and French ministers to reveal their assets. A new specialist prosecutor would be appointed to deal with corruption and fraud cases. President Hollande has called for tax havens across the globe to be eradicated.
Fox News says tens of thousands of immigrants and activists rallied nationwide on Wednesday in a coordinated set of protests aimed at pressing Congress to approve immigration measures that would grant 11 million immigrants living there illegally a path toward citizenship. Organisers said demonstrations were taking place in at least 18 states and in Washington, DC. President Obama announced in June his deferred-deportation programme allowing young immigrants to apply for work visas. During his State of Union address in February, Obama called on Congress to quickly pass sweeping immigration measures.
Espectador reports Uruguay's Congress passed a bill on Wednesday to allow same-sex marriages, making it the second country in predominantly Roman Catholic Latin America to do so. Seventy-one of 92 lawmakers in the lower house of Congress voted in favour of the proposal, one week after the Senate passed it by a wide majority. Uruguay is the 12th country to pass a law of this kind, according to Human Rights Watch. In Latin America, Argentina also has approved gay marriage and it is allowed in Mexico City and some parts of Brazil.
The Times says British Prime Minister David Cameron has paid tribute to Margaret Thatcher as an “extraordinary leader and an extraordinary woman”. At the start of a specially-convened six-hour tribute debate in the House of Commons, Cameron praised her achievements and said she had made Britain "great" again. Labour Party leader Ed Miliband said she had been a “unique and towering figure” but said he had disagreed with much of what she did.
According to Huffington Post, material from pornographic websites has been downloaded within the Vatican. The discovery was made by Torrent Freak, a US website that analyses file sharing, after it set out to see whether anyone was illegally downloading films and music for free in breach of copyright laws. Gerard O'Connell, Vatican Affairs analyst in Rome, said that it was difficult to tell who could have accessed the sites due to the traffic in and out of the city. “We have about 3,000 people working in the Vatican, during the time of the conclave we had 6,000 with practically all of them having access keys to work inside the Vatican,” he said.