The following are the top items in the overseas media. Maltese newspapers were not published today, Good Friday.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has reportedly ordered the country's rocket units be on standby to attack US military bases in Hawaii, Guam, South Korea and Japan. The orders were made after the US flew two stealth bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force to Pyongyang. The north's official KCNA news agency said Kim signed the orders at a midnight meeting of top generals. On Thursday, the US flew two radar-evading B-2 Spirit bombers on practice runs over South Korea, responding to a series of North Korean threats. They flew from the United States and back again in what appeared to be the first exercise of its kind, designed to show America's ability to conduct long-range, precision strikes “quickly and at will”, the US military said.
ABC reports Iran and North Korea have blocked the agreement of the first global treaty on the conventional arms trade and talks were being held to try to save the accord. North Korea's delegate said the proposed text could be “politically manipulated by major arms exporters” and Iran's UN ambassador called it “discriminatory”. After both countries raised their flags at the final negotiating session to signal their objection, conference president Peter Woolcott of Australia suspended the meeting for behind-the-scenes talks.
According to AFP, Argentine President Cristina Kirchner has launched a fiery Twitter attack deriding Britain's claim to the Falkland Islands, saying even three-year-old children would know London has no case. After Argentina renewed its call for a negotiated solution at a UN meeting, Kirchner boasted that fellow Latin American nations “support our claims without reservations for historic, documented, geographic reasons and the most basic logic”. Her tweets followed a referendum held in the Falklands this month in which 99.8 percent of islanders voted in favour of remaining British.
The global economy is beginning to rebound, but Europe is lagging behind and unemployment rates, even in countries starting to see growth, are still too high. Börzen Zeitung quotes am OECD report saying it expects growth to accelerate in Japan and the United States in the first half of 2013. And though Germany will bounce back strongly, it says other countries that use the euro will contract or only grow slowly.
Meanwhile, French President François Hollande told France 24 that austerity would lead to the “explosion” of Europe, which was battling a serious debt crisis. He said a policy of “austerity will condemn Europe to explode”, adding that “prolonging austerity today runs the risk of not cutting deficits and certainly create unpopular governments”. He also vowed to reverse near record unemployment this year as he defended his record amid plummeting ratings and indicators in Europe's second economy.
Cyprus Mail says President Nicos Anastasiades has thanked his people for the orderly way they went about their business when banks reopened yesterday. The country's banks were closed for almost two weeks while the government negotiated a €10 billion international bailout, the first in Europe's single currency zone to impose losses on bank depositors. Bank staff turned up for work early for the midday opening as cash was delivered by armoured trucks, with uniformed security guards on duty. Cypriots lined up at branches around the country, but despite fears of unrest, the day was generally calm.
Avvenire reports that bolstering his growing reputation for humility, Pope Francis put a new twist on a papal Easter ritual Thursday by washing the feet of 12 juvenile offenders in a Rome detention centre, instead of the 12 priests who till now represented the apostles at the Last Supper. He told the youngsters not to “let your hope be stolen away”. Kneeling before the group, the pope called the act “a caress from Jesus”. The selected inmates of the Casal del Marmo borstal were two young women, an Italian Catholic and a Muslim ethnic Serb born in Rome, and 10 young men from Italy, North Africa and Eastern Europe.
Nelson Mandela is responding positively to treatment after being readmitted to hospital with a lung infection. President Jacob Zuma sought to reassure South Africans that Mandela was in good hands and told the BBC there was no need to panic. The 94-year-old was hospitalised on Wednesday.
Associated Press reports a dirty dentist placed 7,000 patients at risk of contracting HIV and other infectious diseases after failing to properly sterilise equipment at his Oklahoma practice. Health officials urged all who had ever been treated at the Tulsa oral surgery practice to be tested at a free clinic.
French actress Julie Gayet has launched legal action over Internet rumours that she is the mistress of President François Hollande, her lawyer told AFP on Thursday. Judicial sources said Gayet, a blonde 40-year-old who appeared in one of Hollande's 2012 election commercials, had filed a complaint relating to an alleged breach of her right to a private life with Paris prosecutors. The move came after she was reported or implied by various bloggers and websites to have become close to the Socialist president. Hollande, 58, lives with his girlfriend Valerie Trierweiler, a glamorous journalist for whom he left fellow Socialist politician Segolene Royal, the mother of his four children. Hollande's office refused comment when contacted by AFP. And in a statement, Gayet's lawyer Vincent Toledano said there was no basis to the rumours.