The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says a document posted on the government website containing details that did not tally with the Budget speech, included “measures which the government did not approve. In another story it says trappers have received the required rings for the next autumn season, which they expect to open in a week’s time even though the government has made no announcement to that effect.
The Malta Independent says 13,120 crimes were reported between January 1 and September 25 September, resulting in 1,580 persons detained at the Police General Headquarters lockup.
L-Orizzont recalls the Vulcan bomber which exploded over Zabbar 40 years ago leaving five crew members and a woman dead.
Malta Today says a Gozitan has been fined a record €8,000 for illegal trapping.
In-Nazzjon reports about the government's administrative mistake which saw a Budget document tabled in Parliament being substantially different from the actual Budget speech.
AboutInternational news
Euronews reports Moscow has considered “strange” a request from the Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte for Russia to cooperate fully with a probe into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17. A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman told Interfax news agency her country had always been willing to cooperate with the investigation. Rutte’s comments followed the publication of a final report by the Dutch Safety Board, which concluded that MH17 was shot down by a missile typically used with a Russian-made BUK system. But Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the conclusions were “biased”.
Meanwhile, The New York Times says Ukraine is calling for a criminal investigation. In a news conference at the UN, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin also called on Russia to cooperate with any future criminal probe. All 298 passengers, mostly Dutch, and crew on board were killed.
London’s The Independent reports European airlines have been warned by aviation experts that commercial flights were under threat from Russian cruise missiles being fired at Syria.
The missiles, fired from the Caspian Sea, are crossing airspace used by the airlines to fly to Asia and the Far East, according to a bulletin issued by EASA, the EU’s flight safety regulator.
Haaretz says that as three more Israelis were killed and more than 20 injured in a series of Palestinian attacks, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament Israel “will settle the score with the murderers and those who help them”. He vowed they would “cut the hands of whoever tries to hurt us”. Israeli officials have meanwhile cordoned off Arab neighbourhoods in Jerusalem and the security cabinet decided to place soldiers in city centres to support the police.
AP reports Hillary Clinton and her nearest competitor Bernie Sanders clashed on US involvement in the Middle East, gun control and economic policy as they opened the first Democratic debate this morning, outlining competing visions for a party seeking to keep the White House for a third straight term. Polls show Clinton far ahead of her competitors.
President Putin has reacted harshly to Western accusations that Russian warplanes were not bombing the Islamic State, but rather rebel groups opposed to the Syrian government. Sputnik says he blamed the US and others for not offering coordinates of the positions of the rebel groups they back. Meanwhile, Russia expressed concern that a recent US airdrop of arms to Syrian rebels might end up benefiting the Islamic State. US and Russian military leaders will hold talks later today on how to keep clear of each other in the skies over Syria.
According to al bawaba, the head of al-Qaeda’s offshoot in Syria has called on followers to carry out retaliatory attacks in Russia. Just hours after the call from Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the leader of Jabhat al-Nusra, two mortar shells landed in the perimeter of the Russian Embassy in Damascus. No casualties were reported.
Conservative cardinals indicated as signatories of a letter to Pope Francis leaked to the press on Monday distanced themselves from its publication, saying those responsible had intended to create divisions among participants. The letter expressed concern about the synod on the family. In an interview with Corriere della Sera, Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Mueller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said “The scandal is that a private letter to the pope has been published. It is a new Vatileaks.”
Ansa reports the Italian Senate has approved the government’s flagship constitutional reform bill with 179 votes in favour, 16 against and seven abstentions. The reform streamlines Italy’s slow, costly political machinery by creating a smaller, regionally-based Senate with limited law-making powers.
CNBC announces Twitter is laying off up to 336 employees, signaling CEO Jack Dorsey’s resolve to slash costs while the company struggles to make money. The cutbacks equate to about eight per cent of Twitter’s workforce of 4,100 people.
Dance experts have been digesting a new trove of material from Tchaikovsky’s “Swan Lake” — not the revised 1895 version that became the world’s most familiar ballet, but his original 1877 production at the Bolshoi. The New York Times’ dance writer wrote he found a transformed view of Odile, the Black Swan, and a ballet whose scale becomes “briefly cosmic.” Stagings are already being discussed.
According to the Connecticut Post, a jury threw out a suit by a 54-year-old New Yorker, Jennifer Connell, who sued her now-12-year old nephew for an incident four years ago in which he hugged her a little too hard, knocked her to the floor and broke her wrist. She testified that since then, life had been hard. Connell sought $127,000 from the nephew for the harm she said she has suffered.