The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Sunday Times of Malta says a ticket recall has fuelled Arriva pull-out talk.
The Malta Independent quotes the Children Commissioner saying closed playgrounds are curtailing children's right to play.
MaltaToday reports how the Constitutional Court had laid down that a law protecting tenants from eviction in pre-1979 temporary leases is illegal.
Il-Mument says an activity has revealed a meeting between Michelle Muscat and Shiv Nair, a government consultant who has been blacklisted by the World Bank.
It-Torca quotes Joseph Muscat saying difficult talks in Brussels on immigration are starting to bear fruit.
Illum reports that medicine against cancer is out of stock.
KullHadd says the prime minister has bound the EU to take action on migration.
The overseas press
Der Spiegel reports the American National Security Agency started tapping Chancellor Angela Merkel's telephone as early as in 2002. Quoting classified material, the German weekly said orders to tap the German Chancellor's conversations were still effective days before President Obama visited Berlin last June.
Meanwhile, the Italian news agency AGI says the National Security Agency and the CIA activated around 80 spy and phone-tapping networks around the world in 2010, all modelled on those set up in enemy countries towards the end of the 1970s. Nineteen of these “listening” groups were located in European capital cities, Rome included. Twin NSA-CIA networks were also set up in countries the US had always officially regarded as firm allies – Berlin, Madrid, Paris, Prague and Geneva.
Blesk reports Bohslav Sobotka's Social Democrats have taken the lead in the early government elections in the Czech Republic. With over a quarter of the votes counted, the CSSD has taken 22.13 per cent, ahead of billionaire Andrej Babis's new populist ANO party, with 18.61 per cent. The Communist Party lagged slightly behind, with 17.08 per cent.
Expesso says thousands of demonstrators protested in Portugal yesterday against salary cuts and public sector reforms imposed by the government under the country's international bailout deal.
Avvenire reports Pope Francis has told over 100,000 people from 70 countries who took part in the pilgrimage of families in St Peter’s Square – one of the highlights of the Year of Faith – that the magic words that keep families together were forgiveness, pardon and thanks.
La Sicilia says Mount Etna, Europe’s most active volcano, has erupted, sending up a towering plume of ash visible in much of eastern Sicily and forcing the temporary closure of Catania Airport. . Several inhabited villages dot the mountain’s slopes, but evacuations were not necessary despite the lava flow. Etna’s eruptions are not infrequent, although the last major one occurred in 1992.
Airbus has urged the German government to pay out a promised final loan instalment of €600 million for the construction of the A350, after the aircraft manufacturer said it had created German jobs in return. Airbus chief operating officer Guenter Butschek told Tagesspiegel that the firm was offering 4,000 job – 250 per cent more than originally planned – in a bid to unfreeze the last loan tranche, which has been blocked for months by Berlin pending agreement on German-based manufacturing and research jobs.
Clarin reports today’s mid-term elections in Argentina look likely to confirm the beginning of the political end of President Cristina Kirchner, the Peronist leader whose popularity has hit record lows. As 30 million voters take to the polls to elect half the lower chamber of Congress and a third of the Senate, all eyes are really on presidential voting in 2015, from which Kirchner, would be barred. Her young and relatively inexperienced former chief of staff, Sergio Massa, 41, who has broken with her and formed a splinter Peronist party, is considered the man to watch.
AFP says a 24-year-old surfer is fighting for his life in hospital after a shark bit off his leg off the French Indian Ocean island of Reunion Saturday. Authorities said his right leg was severed at the thigh. The incident took place around 20 metres from the beach – outside the protected perimeter. The two other shark attacks reported off the island this year were deadly. Some argue that the growing amounts of wastewater poured into the sea attract sharks.