Malta and international press digest

The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:

The Times leads with yesterday's announcement by Frontex, the EU border control agency, that patrols in the centre of the Mediterranean will start in the coming days. It also carries a picture of French Prime Minister Fillon being greeted at Castille by Prime Minister Gonzi.

The Malta Independent leads with the French PM's short visit to Malta and also reports that Myanmar (Burma) has finally allowed the first UN air flights to land, taking much needed supplies to help survivors of a cyclone that killed tens of thousands.

l-orizzont focuses on abortion in Europe and says an abortion is performed every 27 seconds. It also highlights the vote due to be taken at the MLP general conference today on a motion to allow voting rights to be extended to all paid-up members for the leadership election..

In-Nazzjon says France has expressed support for Malta's plea for burden sharing with regard to illegal immigration. It also carries comments from PN general secretary Joe Saliba ahead of the PN general council meeting which will discuss the election result. He said the PN was continuing to renew itself.

The Press in Britain...

Metro says the first aid flights have landed in cyclone-hit Burma. The United Nations and the European Union have expressed concern after air workers were still experiencing delays to be allowed access to the devastated areas.

The Mirror devotes the whole of its front page carries to an interview which Josef Fritzl's lawyer passed on to the Austrian magazine News, in which the 73-year-old insisted he did his best to care for the daughter he repeatedly raped and their seven children. In the compelling interview he is said to have told how he became addicted to forbidden lust for his daughter Elisabeth.

The Guardian reports survival rates for babies born before 24 weeks are extremely low and getting no better in spite of medical advances.

The Daily Star leads with a story that TV presenters Ant and Dec have become caught up in a vote-rigging scandal at one of Britain's top celebrity events. Sources said the duo were "appalled" after it emerged their 2005 British Comedy People's Choice award should have gone to The Catherine Tate Show.

The Daily Mail also reports on the television phone-in scandal saying a report found that organisers promised pop star Robbie Williams he could present Ant and Dec with an award if he appeared on the show. ITV were fined a record £5.67m.

The Daily Express says banks have been criticised for increasing fees on current accounts as fears grow that the days of free banking are numbered.

According to The Scotsman, the rift between Gordon Brown and the Scottish Labour Party has deepened as the party's leader has openly defied Brown's orders by pushing ahead with plans for an independence vote.

The Times reports that motorists are sitting in queues on motorways and A-roads because the Government has failed to meet its key target for reducing congestion.

And elsewhere...

The Jerusalem Post says the European Union has congratulated Israel on the 60th anniversary of its independence. The president of the EU's executive, Jose Manuel Barroso, said the European Union and the State of Israel were both born out of the same "convulsions" of the Second World War. Festivities have been taking place across the Jewish state.

Meanwhile, London's Pan-Arab daily Asharq Al-Awsat says Palestinians have begun marking what they refer to as the "nakba", or catastrophe, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were driven from their homes as an outcome of the Israeli war of independence.

Ha'aretz reports Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is suspected of illegally accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars from an American citizen. The Isreal media reports follow an Israeli court decision to reduce the scope of the gagging order on the case. Mr Olmert's opponents have urged him to resign.

The Daily Star quotes an Iraqi defence ministry spokesman saying the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, has been arrested in the northern city of Mosul. Al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, took over al-Qaeda in Iraq after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in June 2006 in a US air strike.

Washington Post reports Russia has ordered the expulsion of two American military attaches from the US embassy in Moscow. US officials are playing talk that this is in retaliation for the expulsion of two Russian diplomats in Washington in November and April.

Le Progres says that the suspected paedophile at the centre of a world-wide Interpol hunt has been arrested in New Jersey. Wayne Nelson Corliss was caught just two days after the international police agency appealed for public help to catch him and released his picture. He is suspected of sexually abusing at least three young boys from Southeast Asia.

La Tribune de Geneve reveals that fatal airliner crashes increased for the first time in a decade last year but overall deaths declined to 692 last year compared with 855 a year earlier. According to the annual safety report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), accidents in Brazil, Indonesia and Africa led to a rate of 0.75 serious accidents per million flights. The previous year's figure was 0.65.

The Lancet highlights the growing threat posed by dangerous fake drugs, saying that between 2000 and 2006, the US Food and Drug Administration saw an eight-fold increase in the number of new counterfeit cases. It said in developing countries with weak regulation, 10 to 30 percent of medicines might be counterfeit' anti-malarial drugs are a particular target.

The People's Daily leads with the Olympic flame at the peak of Mount Everest, showing a Chinese mountaineering team holding up a specially designed torch along with Chinese and Olympic flags on the top of the world's tallest mountain. The climb up Everest was a spectacular feat organisers of the Beijing Olympics hoped would underscore China's ambitions for this August games.