The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times reports how a hunter was fined over €4k for illegal hunting. It also focuses on the changes planned to the code of discipline of schools.
The Malta Independent focuses on the permit issued by Mepa yesterday for a waste recycling plant in Maghtab.
In-Nazzjon says the Birzebbuga mayor is objecting to the gas tanks for the power station. It also says the health minister is going against the spirit of the ministerial code of ethics in the manner of employment of his staff.
l-orizzont says a recording of comments by GWU General Secretary Tony Zarb was manipulated, according to an audio expert commissioned by the union.
The overseas press
CBC News reports Canadian police and intelligence agencies have arrested two men and charged them with plotting a terrorist attack against a Canadian passenger train with support from al-Qaida elements in Iran.
The Washington Post says teenage Boston bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged on his hospital bed with using a weapon of mass destruction and could face the death penalty if convicted.
Ansa reports Italian President Giorgio Napolitano has urged the country’s political parties to strike a deal on a new government “without delay”. At his swearing-in ceremony in parliament yesterday, Napolitano scolded the politicians for failing to break a two-month post-election deadlock and accused them of being “deaf” to the Italians’ call for change.
Darik Radio reports that the foreign ministers of Germany, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands have urged the EU to do more to protect its main values – the fundamental principles of democracy and the rule of law. Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria came under criticism for failing to observe some fundamental EU laws on the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law.
According to Kathimerini, a former Greek defence minister has appeared in court for the start of a long-anticipated corruption trial against him and 18 other co-defendants, including members of his immediate family, on charges stemming from allegations of kickbacks in defence contracts and money-laundering charges. If convicted, they could spend the next 20 years in prison.
EU Observer says the 17 member states forming the eurozone have increased efforts to rein in public debt, but many have failed to meet deficit targets. European statisticians said despite negative developments in many eurozone countries – particularly Greece, Spain and France – the bloc as a whole managed to reduce its deficit to 3.7 percent, down from 6.4 percent at the height of the global financial crisis back in 2009.
La Sicilia says a group of seven activists have been arrested after they broke into an American military installation in protest against the construction of a controversial US military satellite-communications system in the Sicilian town of Niscemi. The group fears the system will pose environmental and health risks. The United States embassy in Rome has condemned the break-in.
Al-Sharq says a court in Qatar has sentenced an Asian immigrant to 40 lashes for consuming alcohol. The Muslim immigrant, whose nationality was not stated, works as a barber in the Gulf state. He was arrested after a man reported him to police for allegedly harrassing his maid by plying her with visiting cards with his phone number on them.
Health experts have warned about the serious risks from the “Cinnamon Challenge” – a game popular with US teenagers, who ingest a spoonful of the pungent spice, then try to refrain from drinking water.