The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports how the prices of electrical goods are set to change with the removal of eco tax.
The Malta Independent and In-Nazzjon give prominence to the address by the Chief Justice at the opening of the Forensic Year yesterday. Prominence is also given to the opening of the academic year at the University. The Malta Independent also highlights plans for Grand Harbour development.
l-orizzont reports that Peter Mercieca, former head of the Civil Protection Department in Gozo, is set to be taken to court for allegedly abusing of his powers.
The overseas press
CNN reports President Barack Obama has called for the US to reconsider firearms policy after nine people were killed and more than 20 wounded in a shooting at a community college in Oregon. He said, “America would wrap everyone who is grieving in our prayers and our love.” But he added that prayers were “not enough”. Police have killed the suspected shooter.
Syria Times suggests Iranian troops are arriving in Syria to join Hezbollah fighters in a major ground offensive in support of President Assad's government. Meanwhile, Sputnik reports Russian warplanes, on their second day of air strikes, bombed a camp run by rebels while, according to the Pentagon, senior US and Russian officials spoke for just over an hour through a secure video conference, focusing on ways to keep air crews safe.
As the conflicts in Syria and Afghanistan driving the mass migration intensify, AFP says the UN refugee agency predicted 700,000 people would reach Europe via the Mediterranean this year and “possibly even higher numbers” would come in 2016. Meanwhile, some 200 Syrians and Afghans clashed overnight in a Hamburg refugee centre, leaving four people injured.
The New York Times reports Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu savaged the nuclear deal with Iran, falling silent for nearly a minute at the United Nations Thursday in protest and offering to resume direct peace talks with the Palestinians. Not long after he spoke, Palestinians shot dead two Israelis in a vehicle between two Jewish settlements near the Palestinian city of Nablus in the occupied West Bank.
Thatcher-era finance minister Nigel Lawson has announced he would lead a campaign by a group within Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative party to fight for an exit from the European Union. Writing in The Times, he said Cameron's plans to press for reforms within the EU were “wafer thin” and unlikely to succeed.
El Pais reports Spain’s parliament has approved measures giving the Constitutional Court powers to fine or suspend authorities that do not carry out its sentences. Observers saw the measure as shoring up legal powers to deal with any bid for independence from Catalonia. Meanwhile, in an interview with Antena 3 TV, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced that the parliamentary elections will be held in Spain on December 20.
Hollywood Reporter announces the death of John Guillermin, who directed The Towering Inferno and the 1976 King Kong. He was 89. Other films included House Of Cards, The Blue Max, Rapture and Shaft In Africa. His final film was the Kong sequel King Kong Lives in 1986.
The taller you are, the more likely you are to develop cancer, according to researchers in Sweden. Aftonbladet says that researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm analysed data on 5.5 million Swedish men and women with heights ranging between 100cm and 225cm. They found that the risk of women developing cancer of any kind rose by 18 per cent for every extra 10 cm of height, while for men the risk rose by 11 per cent. Taller women had a 20 per cent greater risk of breast cancer than short women, while the chances of having melanoma skin cancer increased by around 30 per cent per 10cm of height in both sexes.