The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta quotes Arriva Malta saying it is losing €400,000 each week.
The Malta Independent discusses saving on payment of maternity leave by employers and their impact on second pillar pensions.
In-Nazzjon says Joseph Muscat is steamrolling over everyone on the citizenship scheme and applications started being received yesterday even though the scheme has not completed the parliamentary process.
l-orizzont says the GWU and the Employers’ Association have discussed a joint strategy on decent conditions of work
The overseas press
Brazil and Germany have joined forces to press for the adoption of a UN general resolution that promotes the right of privacy on the internet – marking the first major international effort to restrain the US National Security Agency's intrusions into the online communications of foreigners. The Globe reports Brazilian and German diplomats met in New York with a small group of Latin American and European governments to consider the draft resolution, which does not refer to a flurry of American spying revelations that have caused a political uproar around the world. The allegations stem from revelations by US whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Meanwhile, Associated Press says the US has refused to show any leniency to Snowden, who made his appeal for clemency in a letter released by German MP Hans-Cristian Stroebele who met with him in Moscow. In it, the 30-year-old American asked for international help to persuade the US to drop spying charges against him and said he would like to testify before the US Congress about the National Security Agency's surveillance activities.
The Guardian reports German, French, Spanish and Swedish intelligence services have all developed methods of mass surveillance of internet and phone traffic over the past five years in close partnership with Britain's GCHQ eavesdropping agency. It says the bulk monitoring is carried out through direct taps into fibre optic cables and the development of covert relationships with telecommunications companies.
Niger on Friday ordered the “immediate” closure of migrant camps in the north of the country after 92 people, mostly women and children, died of thirst trying to cross the harsh Sahara desert. Le Republician quotes a government statement saying all those involved in trafficking migrants, many of whom pass through northern Niger on their way to Algeria or Libya, would be identified and “severely punished”.
Avvenire says Pope Francis prayed for the victims of a series of recent migrant disasters and made an appeal for the survivors Friday during an All Saints Day Mass at Rome's Verano cemetery. Some 400 people died in two migrant boat disasters near Lampedusa last month and this week Niger said the bodies of 92 migrants, mostly women and children, had been found in the Sahara desert.
Expresso reports that in a first reading in the Portuguese parliament on Friday, legislators from the ruling centre-right coalition backed Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho's draft budget bill for 2014, saying there was no alternative to harsh spending cuts. The 2014 budget foresees cuts of about €4 billion, with media reports claiming the decline in spending would be the most severe one in more than 45 years.
CNN says a US drone strike has killed Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. Mehsud, who was on US most-wanted terrorist lists with a $5 million bounty, is believed to have been behind a deadly suicide attack at a CIA base in Afghanistan, a failed car bombing in New York's Times Square and other brazen assaults in Pakistan that killed thousands of civilians and security forces.
Los Angeles Times reports a federal security agent was shot dead and two other people were injured when a gunman opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon at Los Angeles airport last night. A man was taken into custody after the incident, which caused disruption to flights nationwide. Some passengers were evacuated, while others were locked down in airport restaurants and lounges.
O Globo says some 100 demonstrators protesting the forced eviction of squatters clashed with police in Sao Paulo in a fresh outbreak of violence in Brazil's biggest city. Demonstrators erected barricades, set tyres ablaze and partially blocked traffic on a major highway leading to the international airport. Riot police used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse stone-throwing youths.
Deutsche Welle says Germany has became the first country to categorise three sexes, with the official recognition of the existence of an “indeterminate sex”. From now on German passports will carry three designations, M for male, F for female and X for intersex. An estimated one in 2,000 people are born with characteristics of both genders.
Dawn says a four-year-old girl in Pakistan has been taken to hospital in a critical condition after being raped by her teacher. The police said the attack took place on the day the child started attending lessons for the first time.
Scientists have shed more light on how the movements of a dog's tail are linked to its mood. Earlier research had revealed that happy dogs wag their tails more to the right (from the dog's point of view), while nervous dogs have a left-dominated swish. But now scientists say that fellow canines can spot and respond to these subtle tail differences. The study is published in the journal Current Biology. Prof Georgio Vallortigara, a neuroscientist from the University of Trento, said that just as in humans, for dogs the right side of the brain was responsible for left-handed movement and vice versa, and the two hemispheres played different roles in emotions.