The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times says the power station contract will be fast tracked, excluding the contracts committee.
The Malta Independent says Malta ranks lower than international average rates in child literacy. It also reports how Labour MP Carmelo Abela floated the idea that parliament could stay at the palace if space at the new site was insufficient.
In-Nazzjon says Parliamentary Secretary Michael Farrugia interfered to stop a Mepa board meeting which was discussing a waste recycling plant at Ghallis. It also says the power station project will not be under the scrutiny of the Contracts Committee.
l-orizzont quotes the general secretary of the GWU saying precarious work has to stop.
The overseas press
The Times (UK) reports that foreign ministers from the G8 group of nations, meeting in London, have strongly condemned North Korea's disputed nuclear and ballistic missile programmes and warned Pyongyang that its continued aggressive stance would only serve in further isolating the reclusive nation. They said they supported strengthening the current sanctions regime and take further significant measures in the event of a further launch or nuclear test by North Korea.
The US says it is urging China to use all its leverage to help rein in North Korea's “destabilising” actions. The BBC reports US officials travelling with Secretary of State John Kerry to Seoul said Washington wanted Beijing to evoke “a sense of urgency” in its talks with Pyongyang. North Korea has ratcheted up tensions in the region, threatening nuclear strikes against South Korea and the US. Meanwhile, the Pentagon has denied a report suggesting Pyongyang is able to mount nuclear warheads on missiles.
CNN reports President Obama has urged Pyongyang to end its “belligerent approach” and to try to lower temperatures. But he warned that the United States would take “all necessary steps” to protect its people and allies from North Korea. Amid rising tensions on the Korean peninsula, the results of a CNN/ORC International poll show increasing worries about the threat that North Korea poses to the United States. The poll found that 41 per cent of Americans believe North Korea poses an immediate threat to the US, representing a record high.
The Huffington Post says a senior UN official has said the initiative by the G8 industrialised countries to step up the fight against rape and other sexual violence in conflict represents “a beacon of light and hope” for the countless survivors around the world. The UN Secretary-General's special representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura made the remarks at the launch of the Declaration on Preventing Sexual Violence, endorsed by all G8 member s at their meeting in London. It commits the group to help victims of sexual violence in war, prevent further attacks and hold perpetrators responsible for their crimes. They also pledged $35.5 million (€27.06 million) in funding for those efforts.
Cyprus Mail reports the country’s government has confirmed that it would have to raise much more money than first thought towards an international bailout. According to Cyprus' creditors, the cost of the rescue has risen from €17.5 billion to €23billion. The news came as eurozone finance ministers prepare to meet in Dublin later today to review how Cyprus could raise its contribution to the bailout being put together by the European Union and IMF.
Le Monde quotes UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging world leaders to initiate serious efforts to protect the planet's oceans and seas from pollution, unsustainable exploitation, climate change and acidification. In a message to the “High Seas, Our Future!” conference in Paris, Ban noted that oceans were heating up and their acidification was adversely affecting marine life. Rising sea levels, he said, threaten to re-draw the global map at the expense of hundreds of millions of people, often the most vulnerable.
El Universal reports final campaign rallies have been held throughout Venezuela before Sunday’s election to choose a successor to President Hugo Chavez, who died last month. Hundreds of thousands of acting president, Nicolas Maduro's, supporters took to the streets of Caracas. Opposition candidate Henrique Capriles spoke to another large crowd in the northern city of Acarigua.
AFP announces that France's top rabbi, Gilles Bernheim, has resigned after admitting to plagiarising several authors and lying about an academic status on his CV. Rabbi Bernheim had initially denied all wrongdoing, and had then asserted that the plagiarism in his book had been carried out by an assistant. Until Tuesday he had still been insisting that to resign would be a desertion of duty.
The Los Angeles Times reports that prosecutors filed a criminal charge against disgraced former KPMG partner Scott London, saying he gave a stock-trading friend inside information about his firm's clients in exchange for cash, jewellery and expensive dinners. The charge carries a possible sentence of five years in prison. London made a brief appearance in federal court on Thursday and was released on $150,000 bond.
Vesti says the Serbian suspected of shooting dead 13 people, including his mother and son, before turning the gun on his wife and himself, has died from his self-inflicted injuries. Ljubisa Bogdanovic, a 60-year-old war veteran, reportedly killed six men, six women and a two-year-old boy in a shooting spree in a village 30 miles south-east of Belgrade. His motive for the indiscriminate shooting is still not clear. Reports indicated that he had lost his job last year, as also his son.
Corriere della Sera reports a Milan judge has sentenced Egyptian immigrant Sameh El Melegy to 20 years in prison for the rapes of 20 women, aged between 22 and 50, most of whom he rode up to from behind on his bicyle. Judge Antonella Bertoja also fined El Melegy for stealing some of his victims' handbags and their contents and ordered him to pay €10,000 to the city council for damaging Milan's image. The prosecution had asked for a jail term of 122 years.
According to The New York Post, a 21-year-old New York woman is facing criminal charges after telling friends and family members she had cancer, accepting cash donations for treatment and then spending it on heroin. Brittany Ozarowski used social networking sites to spread the word about her false ailments, inspiring loved ones to donate over six figures. Her grandmother sold her house to donate $100,000 and her father emptied a retirement account worth $20,000.
Iran could be home to the world’s first time machine, if claims from an Iranian scientist are to be believed. According to The Daily Telegraph, 27-year-old inventor Ali Razeghi has registered with the Centre for Strategic Inventions a device called “The Aryayek Time Traveling Machine” which can reportedly allow individuals to peer up to eight years into the future. Razeghi said his invention can fit in a briefcase and would make its predictions based on the touch of a user. He claims the Iranian government is interested in the application: “a government that can see five years into the future would be able to prepare itself for challenges that might destabilise it”. However, the inventor is afraid China would steal it.