The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says correspondence by a top civil servant seeking “political guidance” from his minister was ignored by the government when it yesterday reiterated that it had no plans to acquire Palazzo Verdelin in Valletta. It also reports that the elderly Danish woman who was found dead in Gozo last month had been strangled.
MaltaToday says other owners of Palazzo Verdelin besides Gaffarena were Peter Caruana Galizia and the B Tagliaferro Group.
The Malta Independent says the Jordanian investors behind the American University of Malta seem to have finally accepted the idea of having a split campus despite having previously insisted on having a single campus at Żonqor Point in Marsascala.
L-Orizzont quotes the Maltese Association for Public Health Medicine saying public health should be taken into consideration in the plan to reduce the legal age of consensual sex from 18 to 16.
In-Nazzjon reports the Opposition’s appeal for the Prime Minister to take action against Home Affairs Minister Carmelo Abela who "lied" about Palazzo Verdelin.
International news
There are conflicting reports whether Libya’s Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni would resign next Sunday as he promised during an interview on Libya Channel, a private TV station. The official news agency LANA reports that during the TV interview, Thinni became angry when the host presented him with questions he said he had collected from viewers, who had criticised Thinni for a lack of security and aid for people displaced by Libya’s regime. When the presenter asked Thinni what he would do if there were protests in reaction, he replied: “People do not need to protest against me because I officially resign from my position.” However, the official government has denied the claim and critics asked whether Thinni’s resignation was to be taken seriously.
Fifty-two survivors of a shipwreck off the coast of Libya told their Italian Navy rescuers yesterday that at least 100 people had been on board their vessel when it began to sink. Ansa says they had been rescued after they were seen by an Italian Navy helicopter floating on a semi-sunk inflatable dinghy some 40 nautical miles off the coast of Libya earlier in the day. The search for the missing is still ongoing.
Meanwhile, clashes between migrants and police were reported in the Greek island of Kos. Kathimerini says incidents broke out when officers used batons and fire extinguishers to prevent migrants from crowding towards an entrance to the football stadium where they were to be transferred. The mayor has warned about the risk of “a bloodbath” on the island, where there are about 7,000 migrants, mostly Afghans and Syrians. In recent days, UNHCR had raised the alarm, speaking of a situation of “chaos” in Kos, as well as Chios and Lesbos.
Asia Times reports Asian stocks and commodities extended losses this morning, feeling the aftershocks of China’s surprise devaluation of the yuan, which hit US equities overnight and pushed down already-weak emerging currencies. This benefitted the dollar, which rallied even against the safe-haven yen. China devalued the yuan by nearly two per cent yesterday in an attempt to prop up its flagging economy.
Fox News announces the Texas police department has fired a white officer who shot and killed unarmed black teenager Christian Taylor in a car dealership. The case, which attracted widespread attention, took place on Friday, two days before the first anniversary of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri. Taylor, 19, was a star college football player at Angelo State University.
Ta’ Nea reports Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has called an emergency meeting of parliament to discuss a bailout agreement that needs to be approved by MPs by tomorrow. The deal is crucial for Athens to avoid going bankrupt. Greece’s third bailout, whose technical details were agreed to with international creditors on Tuesday, will total “around €85 billion” over three years, the Greek government said.
Metro says Amnesty International came in for some heavy criticism after delegates from 70 countries at its annual conference voted to push for the legalisation of prostitution. The group has said research suggests punishing sex workers was counter-productive. In Europe, France recently moved to criminalise the purchase rather than selling of sex which follows the lead of Nordic countries like Iceland, Sweden and Norway. Sex work is legal and regulated in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and elsewhere.
ABC reports the Australian government has all but doomed legislation that would allow gay marriage by refusing to allow its lawmakers a free vote on the divisive issue. Lawmakers in the ruling conservative coalition voted at a meeting to compel members of the government to follow the party line that marriage should be lawful only between a man and a woman. The vote at the end of a passionate, six-hour debate was 66 to 33.
An international team of computer hackers and stock traders has been charged with pocketing more than €90.5 million in illicit profits based on information from stolen unpublished corporate press releases which they used while trading. Bloomberg announces the US Department of Justice has charged nine people in a criminal conspiracy with making unlawful profits in illegal trades on the pilfered information.
Tribune de Genève reports data from the World Health Organisation showing infant mortality in Europe has fallen significantly over recent years, dipping to 12 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2013 compared to 32 in 1990. Nevertheless, there are large disparities in the region, with the infant mortality rate varying from two to 58 deaths per 1,000 live births across the area. Some 160,000 infants die in the region each year, half of them in the first month of life.
Euronews announces Chechnya has opened its first ever women-only beach. The sandy strip outside the provincial capital, Grozny, will be off limits to men in line with Islamic rules. A separate beach just for men will be opened at a later date in the majority Muslim region.
The Times reports the IAAF has began disciplinary action against 28 athletes, whose drug tests from the 2005 and 2007 world championships returned adverse findings following extensive retesting. The world athletics governing body declined to name any of the athletes due to “legal reasons”, though it is understood that the majority of the 28 are in fact retired or already serving suspensions. The latest analytical findings came as a result of the IAAF’s success in retesting urine samples from the Helsinki championships in 2012, where six athletes were found to have doped