The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says Malta's broadband is slow and most expensive, according to an EU survey.
In-Nazzjon and The Malta Independent says doctors have warned of possible strike action in two weeks' time.
In-Nazzjon also shows Opposition leader Simon Busuttil chatting with Angela Merkel during the EPP congress in Madrid.
l-orizzont says the first project of an Enemalta-Shanghai Electric joint venture will be a wind farm in Montenegro.
The overseas press
Libyan news website Alwasat says UN-brokered peace talks between Libya’s warring factions will resume in Morocco next Wednesday. Both the elected parliament in Tobruk and the rival Islamist-backed government in Tripoli have rejected parts of the UN draft deal to form a national unity government that proposes a six-member executive council to lead it.
Libya Herald says violent clashes continued in Benghazi between the Libyan army and the forces of the revolutionary Shura Council. At least one soldier was killed.
Berliner Zeitung reports US Secretary of State John Kerry has voiced cautious hope there might be a way to defuse Israeli-Palestinian violence that has killed nearly 60 people this month. After four hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Kerry said he believed both the Palestinians and the Israelis were in favour of de-escalation
Meanwhile, following his meeting with Kerry, Netanyahu met EU diplomatic chief Federica Mogherini to discuss potential ways forward. AGI says Mogherini urged him to find ways of lessening the tension. The Middle East Quartet – made of representatives of the UN, the US, Russia and the EU – meets in Vienna today to discuss the situation.
Moscow Times reports that as Russia unleashed waves of warplanes from its air base in western Syria to pound militant targets, President Putin has defended his military intervention, saying it could help create conditions for a political solution to the civil war. He said victory over militants fighting President Assad could open the way for a dialogue with “the patriotic opposition”.
Aftonbladett says Sweden has been left reeling after a masked man wearing a cloak and brandishing a sword killed a pupil and a teacher at a school in Trollhattan. Two other students, aged 11 and 15, are in a serious condition with stab wounds and a teacher.
CNN reports President Obama has vetoed the 612-billion-dollar defence spending Bill, sent to him by the Republican-controlled Congress. He said the Bill restored to budget gimmicks, wasted money on unwanted programmes and prevented the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison.
Meanwhile, Fox News says a group of top police chiefs and legal officers has gone to the White House to press for reforms to the US penal system, which accounts for a quarter of the world’s prison population. The law officers argued the policy of harsh mandatory minimum sentences was counterproductive.
Avvenire reports Pope Francis has told the Synod of Bishops on the Family that he plans to establish a new department in the administration of the Holy See to handle matters related to the laity, families and life. He said it would replace the Pontifical Council for the Laity and the Pontifical Council for the Family and would be connected to the Pontifical Academy for Life.
After experiencing two days of quintessentially British pageantry during his State visit, Chinese President Xi Jinping indulged in another local tradition – a pun lunch of fish and chips. The Daily Telegraph sports a picture of David Cameron and Xi drinking beer at a pub near the British Prime Minister’s official residence at Chequers.
The New China news agency says new rules adopted by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party at a meeting on October 12, but came to light yesterday, the CCP ordered no sex outside marriage, no banquets and no rounds of golf. The new rules of conduct require party militants to “manage harmonious families”.
La Tercera says hundreds of same-sex couples in Chile will head to registry offices this week to celebrate civil unions, which become legal for the first time in the country yesterday.
Il Tempo reports Mauro Floriani, husband of prominent conservative politician Alessandra Mussolini, has been handed a one-year suspended prison sentence and fined €1,800for having sex with underage prostitutes.
Il Centro says police in Pescara have arrested a woman paedophile and her cousin after seizing photos and videos from the pair that included images of the woman having sex with her five-year-old son. The boy and the woman’s other children were taken into care.
Natura reveals the taste for pesto is threatening Russia’s pine forests. Environmentalists from the International Union for Conservation of Nature says global demand for pine nuts, one of the main ingredients, is causing hundreds of hectares of Korean pine trees in south-eastern Russia to be razed to the ground.