The following are the top stories in the Maltese and sections of the international press today.
THE TIMES
Air Malta pilots are expected to vote for strike action today to press for conclusion of talks on a new collective agreement. They are calling for better pay.
The UK has handed over control of Basra in Southern Iraq.
L-ORIZZONT
The Manwel Dimech Bridge rebuilding project is seven months behind schedule. Penalties, should they be imposed, will not apply for the company supervising the project.
A ‘hot’ meeting is due to be held today between nurses and the Mater Dei Hospital authorities over the issue of free meals for nurses.
Visas for the US have not only not been waived, but fees will rise in two weeks’ time.
IN-NAZZJON
The PN’s priority is to start its political activity for the next general election from its new headquarters, party secretary Joe Saliba said in an interview after the fund-raising marathon held on Saturday.
The government invested Lm13 million in sports in the past 10 years and will keep up the momentum, the Prime Minister told a sports conference.
THE MALTA INDEPENDENT
A Labour government will be close to Maltese families, Opposition leader Alfred Sant said.
The Prime Minister has promised that sport will be a key element as the government makes education a pillar of its policies.
The Press in Britain… The case of four-year-old Madeleine McCann, who vanished while on holiday in Portugal with her parents seven months ago, is the lead story in five British newspapers after Lisbon’s respected Diario de Noticias reported that a crucial witness had cast fresh doubts over her mother’s account of the night she disappeared. The mother's precise words at discovering that Maddie went missing have become a pivotal issue in the case, with Portuguese police questioning why she would automatically assume Madeleine had been abducted.
The Daily Express says that the Portughese detectives have questioned the restaurant waiter for a third time as they consider his testimony as the "trump card" in their investigation. The Daily Mirror reports Robert Murat, the number one suspect in the child’s disappearance, helped police interview two of the so-called 'tapas seven' in the inquiry by acting as an interpreter.
The Daily Star claims to have found a 'missing witness' to the disappearance of Madeleine McCann. It says he was the first on the scene on the night the little girl vanished.
The Daily Mail leads with a report that more than a million families are struggling to pay off their mortgages as the credit crisis takes effect. The Times leads with the handover of Basra province by British forces to Iraqi authorities. The Independent says the handing over of Basra by the British army brings “a formal end to its ill-starred attempt to control southern Iraq”. The Metro says Al Qaeda has accused Britain of "fleeing" Iraq.
According to The Daily Telegraph, officials have disclosed that students with English as their first language are now in the minority in more than 1,300 schools.
The Guardian reports that a British terror suspect accused of involvement in an alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners is being hunted after fleeing custody in Pakistan . The Financial Times argues that global food prices will come under further pressure as higher benchmark prices for cereals come into operation. …
and elsewhere
Ankara ’s Chumhuriyet reports that warplanes targeting Kurdish rebels bombed villages deep in northern Iraq . Local officials said one woman was killed and hundreds were forced to flee their homes.
Corriere della Sera reports that Turkish police have arrested a man who stabbed an Italian Catholic priest after Sunday Mass at a church in the port city of Izmir. The assault on Padre Adriano Franchini was the latest in a series of attacks on Christians in Turkey and is likely to add to concerns about whether the predominantly Muslim country — which is bidding for European Union membership — can protect its Christian community.
Cairo’s Daily News reports extensively on the attack by angry Muslims who destroyed shops owned by Coptic Christians in a town in southern Egypt that has been witnessing sectarian tensions.The attackers set fire to several shops in the early morning hours. Police detained 15 suspected arsonists.
Warsaw’s Gazeta Polska reports that Prime Minister Donald Tusk has dismissed a Russian warning that the positioning of a US anti-missile base in Poland could trigger a Russian ballistic missile attack. He was replying to a warning by Russian army's chief of staff Yury Baluyevsky that the firing of a weapon from a US anti-missile system in Poland could be misread by Moscow's automated defences, triggering the launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile in return.
US President George W. Bush's foreign policy is in free fall and puts the nation's security at risk, former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told a German magazine Der Spiegel. Mr Bolton, who was a leading hawk in the US administration and favoured a tough stance against Iran, North Korea and Iraq, said Bush needed to rein in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. He also predicted a withdrawal of US troops from Iraq if Hillary Clinton became the next US president. Hundreds of snack foods marketed to children contain additives which international research links to adverse health and behavioural reactions.
Research by UK scientists, published in medical journal The Lancet, linked additives found in many common snackfoods to allergic reactions, asthma, hyperactivity and rashes.
Kiev ’s Segodnya reports that the Ukrainian man who was thought in his lifetime to be the oldest person in the world, has died at the age of 116. Hryhoriy Nestor, a bachelor, died in his sleep before proof of his age was submitted to Guinness World Records. The world's recognised oldest living person is currently Edna Parker of the United States , who turned 114 in April.