The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says Golden Travel Club Limited, the company which runs Fantasy Tours, has filed for bankruptcy and called for the troubled firm to be dissolved. In another story, it says MEPs are calling for a more “efficient and cost-effective” use of interpretation services at the European Parliament to save money. Maltese is only used for five minutes a month.
The Malta Independent leads with the agreement reached between Malta and China yesterday saying that China was set to invest in Enemalta. It says there is also the possibility that a solar panel company would be set up here. In another story it says that homemade baby food is twice as nutritious as manufactured products.
In-Nazzjon quotes PN leader Simon Busuttil saying the privatisation of Enemalta was another u-turn of the Labour government. In another story it says students in a masters scholarship scheme were being asked for pre-payment.
l-Orizzont quotes GWU general secretary Tony Zarb saying that people who were not working according to law were still having their income tax reduced from their pay. It also refers to the agreement signed with China.
International news
The five permanent members of the UN Security Council – China, Britain, France, Russia and the United States – have held a 45-minute closed-door meeting to discuss France's draft resolution on chemical weapons in Syria. A UN diplomat said there were “no real negotiations” in the closed-door talks.
The Times reports the French resolution would give Syria 15 days to declare its entire stock of chemical weapons and make them immediately available for inspection before their destruction.
Russia has objected to the French proposal for its inclusion of an enforcement clause. President Putin called on the US to remove the threat of military action. He told Russia Today it was difficult to make any country to unilaterally disarm if there was military action against it under consideration.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry are scheduled to meet in Geneva for more formal discussions of the proposal. RIA Novosti said Moscow had handed a copy of its plan to the United States, but US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said it had “put forward ideas” rather than a “lengthy package”.
President Putin has used an opinion piece in The New York Times to call for Washington to pursue diplomacy rather than use force.
Meanwhile, The New Yorker says a UN commission investigating human rights violations in Syria has issued its latest report. It concluded that forces on both sides of the conflict have committed atrocities.
On the ground, the Syrian army is trying to retake the Christian town of Maaloula. The BBC's correspondent, who has been at the scene, says heavy fighting continued throughout yesterday.
In other news...
The Washington Times says families of the victims of the worst terror attack on the United States in history have gathered to mark the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks with a moment of silence and the reading of names.
The Vatican's newly-designated Secretary of State Pietro Parolin has said that priestly celibacy is an issue up for discussion within the Catholic Church. Celibacy “is not a dogma of the Church, and it can be discussed because it is an ecclesiastical tradition,” he told the Caracas newspaper El Universal.
The Daily Mirror's top story is about a cannibal who built a torture chamber where he planned to rape, murder and eat his victims.
New Europe says the European Commission has adopted controversial telecom sector reforms which it said would create a “fully connected” Europe and include an end to hugely unpopular mobile phone roaming charges.
La Vanguardia reports 400,000 people demanding an independent Catalonia have joined hands to form a 250-mile human chain across the north-eastern region of Spain.
Deutsche Welle reports nearly one third of the world's food is wasted each year.
Ansa announces the death of Italian singer Jimmy Fontana. He was 79.
NPR announces that the Netherlands is closing eight prisons – because it does not have enough criminals.
Avvenire says Pope Francis is taking to the road in a used car from the 80s after accepting a 1984 Renault 4, donated by a priest in northern Italy who used it to visit poor parishioners.