Malta and international press digest

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

The Times leads with Joseph Muscat’s meeting with the GWU yesterday, where he said that dockyard workers need to be given a real choice on their future. It also says China is all set for the opening of the Olympics later today.

The Malta Independent says the MLP agrees on privatisation but would have treated the dockyard workers better. It also reports on the appointment of the auditor-general and his deputy.

In-Nazzjon says Joseph Muscat avoided questions before his meeting with the GWU yesterday. The questions were about the early retirement schemes at Malta Shipyards.

l-orizzont also reports on the MLP-GWU meeting, quoting Dr Muscat saying that the party wanted to see productive, not retired workers.

The Press in Britain…

The Daily Telegraph sports a big picture of the last lap of the Olympic flame but leads with the news that British households are having their pockets picked by foreign energy firms to subsidise customers in their own countries.

The Guardian leads with the disconcerting news that the year-long credit crunch has wiped £20,000 off the cost of homes in the biggest annual fall in property prices on record.

The Financial Times reports that house prices fell by almost 11 per cent in the year to July..

The Times reports on a £40 billion underworld economy which it says is dominated by homegrown criminals.

The Scotsman says SNP ministers are prepared to do a deal with the Liberal Democrats which could see every council in Scotland set its own income tax rate.

The Daily Mail says a group of MPs are campaigning to scrap their traditional oath of allegiance to the Queen.

The Daily Express says a child looking very much like Madeleine McCann was spotted by a woman on a tram in Brussels days after she went missing.

The Daily Mirror has the first pictures of a couple who may have been spotted with Madeleine McCann three days after she disappeared.

The Metro says fertility treatments used by hundreds of thousands of women ever year are no better than leaving things to mother nature.

The Herald says an investigation has revealed that the hospital bug, Clostridium Difficile, caused or contributed to nearly 300 deaths in Scotland in six months.

And elsewhere…

USA Today leads with President Bush opening a massive new embassy in China as over 80 international leaders descend on Beijing for the Olympics. Bush said the eight storey structure represented the strong "foundation" underpinning relations between the two counties.

Rome’s Il Tempo says Italian police have arrested a wanted gang leader believed to be part of an organised crime clan involved in the massacre of six Italians outside a restaurant in Duisburg, Germany, last summer.

Svobodnaya Gruziya says heavy fighting has broken out between Georgia and its breakaway region of South Ossetia. The Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali has been surrpunded and is reported to be under heavy fire.

Washington Post reports that a US military jury at Guantanamo has sentenced the former driver of Osama Bin Laden to five-and-half years in prison.

Pakistan Today says the ruling coalition has announced its intention to impeach President Pervez Musharraf. It would table an impeachment motion in parliament on Monday.

According to Akhbar Nuoakchott, Mauritanian police have broken up hundreds of anti-coup protestors, after supporters of the military putsh turned out on the streets of the capital earlier in the day.

Variety reports that Lisa Marie Presley, daughter of Elvis Presley and actress Priscilla Presley, is expecting twins. The babies are expected in the autumn.

Los Angeles Times says former tennis star Pam Shriver has filed for divorce from one-time James Bond actor George Lazenby.

New York Post says former Olympic sprinter Alvin Henry has been jailed for 21 years for raping a woman in a New York park.