The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says migrants told EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom yesterday that they wish to leave Malta.
The Malta Independent says Mgr Charles Cordina is set for the top job in Caritas, while current director Mgr Victor Grech will step aside.
In-Nazzjon says the PN has announced its programme of activities for Independence Day.
l-orizzont carries comments by the director of the Marsa Open Centre on the need to train migrants to work and help them integrate. It also says a planned protest against migration has been cancelled after the organiser, after a meeting with the police, said he did not wish to assume responsibility.
The overseas press
The New York Times reports President Obama has escalated the American response to neutralise the Islamic State, which has conquered parts of Iraq and Syria and committed a series of atrocities. US officials said the NATO-backed coalition would be tasked with cutting off the flow of international combatants and money to ISIS, providing military aid to Iraq, trying to remedy humanitarian crises, and working to de-legitimise Islamist fundamentalist ideology.
Meanwhile, The Guardian says NATO leaders have agreed to link new sanctions to the maintenance of a truce reached by Kiev and pro-Russian separatists. As well as the sanctions, NATO leaders also agreed on a new rapid reaction force that would have five bases in Eastern European countries including Poland, Romania and the Baltic states.
Kyiv Post reports Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko has welcomed the ceasefire agreement reached in Minsk and called for long ceasefire to allow time for talks that should end the fighting in east Ukraine. A prisoner exchange should be the next step, while armed forces are supposed to hold their current positions.
Euronews says the reconstruction of Gaza will cost the equivalent of €6 billion, according to estimates by Palestinian government economist Mohammed Shtayyeh. As many as 17,000 homes have been destroyed and Gaza’s only power plant flattened in the Israeli assault, which has left 65,000 Palestinians homeless.
Global Post reports the United Nations is establishing an Ebola Crisis Centre in a bid to stop transmission in affected countries within six to nine months.
USA Today says the National Institutes of Health said it has uncovered a nearly century-old container of ricin and a handful of other forgotten samples of dangerous pathogens as it combed its laboratories for improperly-stored hazardous materials. The agency began an intensive investigation of all its facilities after a scientist in July found vials of smallpox dating from the 1950s, along with other contagious viruses and bacteria that had been stored and forgotten in one lab on the NIH’s campus.
According to The Daily Telegraph, a British High Court judge has ruled that brain tumour patient Ashya King could be flown to the Czech Republic for specialist treatment. Five-year-old Ashya is expected to be flown to the Czech capital Prague later today. He is currently in hospital in Malaga in southern Spain after being made a ward of court.
The Journal reports Google has agreed to issue at least $19 million in refunds to consumers whose children made app purchases from its Google Play store without parental consent. The Federal Trade Commission announced Google agreed to the settlement to resolve a probe into “unfair” practises by billing consumers for charges by children made within kids’ apps since 2011.
AFP says Panama Canal expansion work has uncovered an unexpected trove of archaeological and paleontological treasures. Workers who have blasted through mountains and dug up thick vegetation, have also uncovered the fossils of some 3,000 invertebrates and 500 vertebrates, as well as of more than 250 plants.