The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta reports that Cancer patients are getting drugs which are too strong, due to costs. It also focuses on the Eurovision Song Contest, saying all eyes in Malta will be on Gianluca as ‘Doctor Feelgood’.
The Malta Independent also focuses on the run-up to the final night of the Eurovision Song Contest.
l-orizzont reports how the GWU reported that some chauffeurs are being paid just €3.50 per hour. It also says that the wife of permanent secretary Chris Ciantar was paid €26,000 overtime and €26,000 in allowances by her husband’s ministry.
In-Nazzjon leads with a PN statement that the health minister took the law into his own hand when he dissolved the Embryo Protection Agency.
Press digest
Al Sumaria reports that more than 75 people have been killed in sectarian attacks in several bomb attacks in Iraq's worst day of violence for months. Three separate bombs attacks hit Sunni Muslim areas in and around Baghdad. Later two bombs went off near shopping areas. The attacks follow two days of deadly attacks on Shia targets.
The man in charge for UN’s plans for reconstruction on Syria after the current conflict has warned of massive challenges ahead. CTV News quotes Abdullah al-Dardari saying that more than two years of fighting have cost Syria at least $60 billion and caused the vital oil industry to crumble. A quarter of all homes have been destroyed or severely damaged, and much of the medical system is in ruins. To rebuild the country, he said rebuilding just what has been destroyed would cost more than $80 billion.
Meanwhile, The New York Times quotes the UN's refugee agency confirming that more than 1.5 million people have fled the conflict in Syria – mainly to Jordan and Lebanon – and that some 4.25 million have been displaced within the country. The UN estimates that 80,000 people have died in the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
Argentina Star says the country’s former leader Jorge Rafael Videla, who from 1976-1981 led a military junta responsible for the torture, kidnapping and murder of thousands, has died in his prison cell of natural causes. He was age 87. Videla was serving a life sentence for human rights violations
The BBC quotes the widow of the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko reacting with utter dismay by the ruling by a British judge conducting the inquest into her husband’s death. Sir Robert Owen said the inquest could not take evidence on the Russian state on grounds of national security. Marina Litvinenko felt the coroner had made a “decision to abandon his search for the truth about Russian state responsibility for her husband's death”. Litvinenko, 43, was poisoned by radio active polonium. His wife had previously claimed the UK and Russia were trying to shut down the inquest to preserve trade interests.
Panapress reports the UN has voted to add a number of countries to its decolonisation list, affirming the inhabitants' right to "self-determination and independence". The list decolonisation includes French Polynesia and France's Pacific territory of New Caledonia. Britain has the Falklands, known as the Malvinas islands by the Spanish-speaking world, along with Gibraltar, Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Montserrat, St Helena, Turks and Caicos islands and Pitcairn on the UN list. American Samoa, Guam and the US Virgin Islands remain under US jurisdiction. New Zealand's Tokelau is also on the UN list. Though the measure is largely symbolic, it calls on the ruling governments to "facilitate rapid progress" towards self-determination.
France 24 says a man was arrested on Friday after causing a scare at the Cannes Film Festival, where he attacked a TV studio with a gun loaded with blanks and a dummy grenade. There was a brief moment of panic in the crowd around the seafront studio, but no-one was hurt. The TV channel, France's Canal Plus, resumed broadcasts after a break of several minutes. Earlier, jewellery worth $1.4 million due to be loaned to stars at the Cannes Film Festival was stolen from a local hotel in a pre-dawn heist, according to French investigators.
Various British tabloids reports that Scotland Yard has disclosed it had identified a number of suspects in the case of missing Madeleine McCann. The Daily Mail says officers investigating the case as part of a review have drawn up a list of “people of interest” they wish to speak to in connection with the girl’s disappearance in May 2007. The review was launched in 2011 in an attempt to find out what happened to the toddler who vanished from the family's holiday apartment in Praia da Luz on the Algarve.