The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta quotes Gozo Minister Anton Refalo saying he is the 'sacrificial lamb.' The issue is over a Gozo ferry which turned back to pick up a number of passengers, including the minister.
The Malta Independent says the government is still investigating internet claims on Shiv Nair, a government consultant reportedly blacklisted by the world bank.
MaltaToday reports on plans to enable investors to buy Maltese citizenship. It also says that agritourism could be a ploy to enable development in Outside Development Zones.
l-orizzont leads with a focus on cancer deaths in Malta. It says five die of cancer every day in Malta.
In-Nazzjon's main story is a report on a press conference by PN leader Simon Busuttil attacking government plans to raise indirect taxes and reduce its spending.
The overseas press
Libya Herald reports growing tensions between Libya and the United States over the seizure of alleged Al-Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi from Tripoli last weekend as the country’s top political authority, the General National Congress, asked Washington to hand him back. It described the US operation as a “flagrant violation of (Libya's) national sovereignty”. Libi was on the FBI's most wanted list with a €3.7 million bounty on his head for his alleged role in the 1998 twin bombings of two US embassies in East Africa. Meanwhile, La Sicilia says the US has moved 200 marines to a NATO base at Sigonella. The Italian Defence Ministry approved the move, saying that al-Libi's arrest had caused an international increase in the alert level. The marines will stay in Sicily until December.
Global growth remains weak and subdued, the International Monetary Fund said in its latest report on the world economic outlook. According to The Wall Street Journal, the IMF cut its global growth forecast due to the slowdown in emerging market economies, especially those of China and India, and to the persistence of downside risks in the medium term. Its forecast for world output in 2013 was cut to 2.9 per cent, compared to 3.2 per cent in July. The global economy is expected to strengthen to 3.6 per cent in 2014, down from the previous 3.8 per cent projection.
Fox News reports the Speaker of the US House of Representatives John Boehner has dismissed President Obama’s position on the fiscal crisis as “not sustainable”, only hours after Obama held a non-press conference to say he was willing to compromise but not negotiate. Obama urged the US Congress to lift America’s debt ceiling, warning that failure to do so risked “returning the country to recession”. He likened the Republicans to “hostage takers”. Boehner accused the president he wanted the Republicans “to surrender unconditionally”.
Bloomberg announces President Obama
will nominate the current vice-chair of the US Federal Reserve, Janet Yellen to succeed Ben Bernanke, whose term ends next January. Yellen, the first women to lead the US Central Bank, is Obama’s second choice after the other leading candidate, former Treasury secretary and White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, withdrew from consideration amid mounting opposition from Democrats on the Senate Banking Committee.
Ansa reports some 120 illegal immigrants have landed at Portopalo di Capo Passero, near Siracusa. They include 28 women and 24 children. Almost all the 112 migrants are Syrians and had crossed the Mediterranean in an old fishing vessel found by Coast Guard boats off southeast Sicily. The seven Egyptians on the boat are suspected of being the people-traffickers.
Bissau Digital says three Nigerians have been lynched by a mob in Guinea-Bissau. The three were believed to have kidnapped a boy in Bissau, the capital of the west African nation. Rumours began to spread and soon a crowd of enraged youths gathered and murdered the three men. This was the second lynching in a week of people suspected of abducting children for organ trafficking.
The Associated Press reports an 89-year-old Indiana man has pleaded guilty in Detroit to serving as a drug mule to distribute more than 635 kilos of cocaine. Leo Sharp is one of the oldest criminal defendants in Detroit's federal court. He told the court he had never before committed a crime and that he worked for drug dealers because he needed money.
RIA Novosti says President Putin has demanded an official apology from the Netherlands after a Russian diplomat was arrested over the weekend. Moscow3 has alleged that armed men entered the diplomat’s home and beat him in front of his children. The Foreign Ministry in The Hague say it ws investigating.
Gulf News reports a court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a self-styled preacher to eight years in prison and 800 lashes for torturing his five-year-old daughter to death. The court also ordered Fayhan Al Gamdi to pay a million Saudi riyals as “blood money” to his ex-wife for killing their daughter Luma. Tamim's second wife was sentenced to 10 months in prison and 150 lashes for failing to report to police his brutal abuse of Luma, who died of a fractured skull and other injuries. The child had been whipped, subjected to electric shocks and branded with a red-hot iron.