The Sunday Times of Malta says Mepa will tomorrow assess an application by Mark Gaffarena to sanction illegalities at a Naxxar home which include two bedrooms built over a public lane and abutting on another property. It also says there will be no Christmas season for De La Rue workers, who face dismissal.

 

MaltaToday says there are fears in Libya that Tobruk-based General Haftar is on collision course with rival factions in Tripoli. It says Malta is the sole interlocutor between lawmaker refusing the UK brokered peace deal and external forces. 

 

The Malta Independent on Sunday says over 450 have been employed in government positions of trust. 

 

Il-Mument quotes the parents of a Maltese man abducted in Libya, saying they are living terrible days.

 

KullHadd focuses on how the government has benefited from the transfer of Hondoq to the 'American University of Malta'.

 

Illum interviews Bjorn Formosa, who says he is battling ALS and this was his best year. It-Torca focuses on the same case, quoting Mr Formosa's partner saying it is hard to see him suffer. 

 

 

Former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has come out swinging at Donald Trump during the Democratic debate last night, calling him ISIS’s “best recruiter”. Time reports she was asked whether Trump’s thousands of fans were all wrong in their support for him. “A lot of people are understandably reacting out of fear and anxiety,” she said, adding the country needed “to make sure the really discriminatory messages that Trump is sending around the world don’t fall on receptive ears. He is becoming ISIS’s best recruiter. They are going out people showing videos of Donald Trump insulting Islam and Muslims in order to recruit more radical jihadists.”

Spaniards are voting today in a parliamentary election, the outcome of which is the most uncertain in the 40 years since the return of democracy. El Mundo reports opinion polls show the ruling conservative People's Party of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will win the vote but will fall well short of an absolute majority.  

Slovenians are also voting today, this time in a referendum on whether to block a law that would extend marriage rights to same-sex couples. Dnevnik says voters will consider an amendment to the country’s Law on Marriage and Family Relations that changes the definition of marriage from “between a man and a woman” to “between two people”.

According to The Warsaw Times tens of thousands of Poles have rallied across the country to protest the country’s new right-wing government and its tightening grip on power. Politicians and artists, as well as former anti-communist dissidents, joined the protests against the government’s bid to install five of its alleged supporters in the 15-member Constitutional Tribunal. The central rally in Warsaw was interrupted early due to a bomb threat.

Cumhuryiet says at least 69 suspected Kurdish militants and two soldiers have been killed in the past four days as fighting rages in southeast Turkey. Entire towns are under curfew in an assault on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

AP reports the United States said its two B-52 bombers had no intention of flying over a Chinese-controlled man-made island in the South China Sea, after Beijing accused Washington of “a serious military provocation” in the strategic waters with overlapping claims. China’s Defence Ministry accused the US of deliberately raising tensions in the region.

ISIS is transmitting hours of extremist propaganda into homes deep in one of Afghanistan’s biggest cities for the first time. The so-called “Voice of the Caliphate” has been carrying “lots of revolutionary propaganda and fatwas” calling for followers to kill anyone who stands in the way of ISIS since earlier this week, Achin district Governor Haji Ghalib told NBC News. Most Afghans do not have televisions and radio is the country’s most powerful form of mass media.

Deutsche Welle says the UN resolution for a ceasefire in Syria has been described by opposition leaders as “unrealistic”. The peace plan makes no mention of President Assad giving up power, which remains a key issue.

Avvenire reports a former high official in the Vatican, Cardinal Bertone is donating €150,000 to medical research. The cardinal allegedly received €200,000 from the Foundation of the Ospedale Bambino Gesù, which raises funds for the children’s hospital, in order to refurnish his luxury lodgings overlooking Saint Peter’s Square. The 81-year-old cardinal has consistently denied the allegations.

O Globo says a judge in Brazil has frozen the assets of mining giants Vale and BHP Billiton over the deadly collapse of a toxic waste dam last month. At least 17 people were killed. The accident unleashed a tsunami of toxic waste that buried a nearby village, then rushed into the Doce, Brazil’s second most important river.

Beliner Zeitung announces the death of Kurt Masur, musician, humanist and a symbol of transformation in the events leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He was 88. He was credited with helping prevent violence after the collapse of communism in East Germany and