Malta and international press digest

The following are the top items in the local and overseas press:

The Sunday Times says the PN gained three new majorities in local councils compared to elections in the same localities three years ago, but the PL won the overall vote majority. It also reports that Opposition leader Joseph Muscat in an interview would not commit to reducing power tariffs, as Jason Micallef did last week.

The Malta Independent leads with the local election results. It also reports that Nationalist MPs want Austin Gatt to go and that hundreds attended a walk against racism in Paceville yesterday.

MaltaToday says Rural Affairs Minister George Pullicino has warned Austin Gatt he is being regarded like Labour's Joe Debono Grech.

It-Torca says pressure for an airstrip in Gozo is building up again. It also says MEP Simon Busuttil had blamed workers for Enemalta's inefficiencies.

Il-Mument leads with the PN gains in a number of local councils. It also quotes MEP Simon Busuttil saying the PN needed to be open to new ideas and people. In a third story, it quotes Judge Giovanni Bonello saying he would like to see the Presidential Palace in Valletta become a showcase of Maltese history and culture.

Illum says the Mepa auditor is looking into the permit granted to Victor Scerri, the PN president, for development in Bahrija.

KullHadd leads with the local election results and says the economy is shrinking more than official figures show.

The Press in Britain

The Sunday Times leads with protests on the streets of Iran following the country's disputed elections.

The Independent on Sunday has with a picture of a bloodied supporter of the unsuccessful Iranian presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi.

The Observer says Iran faces political turmoil as the country's opposition leader describes the vote as a "dangerous charade".

A suspect in the Madeleine McCann case breaks his silence in an interview with the Sunday Mirror.

A mother who gave birth to sextuplets tells the Sunday Express doctors tried to abort some of her foetuses at 14 weeks.

The Mail on Sunday reveals a couple's hopes of having a baby were trashed when their final usable embryo was implanted in the wrong patient.

The Daily Telegraph reports the BBC may be forced to give up some of its licence fee to rivals for the first time.

And elsewhere...

Aljezeera reports that three demonstrators have died in Teheran following clashes between supporters of Mir Hossein Mousavi, the main election challenger to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and police. The trouble erupted as Iranian authorities claimed the hard-line president was re-elected by 62.6 per cent of the vote to Mousavi's 33.75 per cent.

Asia Observer says North Korea has responded to new UN sanctions with more defiance, promising to step up its nuclear bomb-making programme by enriching uranium and threatening war on any country that dares to stop its ships on the high seas.

Beirut's An Nahar reports that EU foreign affairs chief Javier Solana has held talks in Beirut with Hezbollah legislator Hussein Hajj Hassan in the first meeting between a senior EU diplomat and the Iranian-backed militant Shiite group.

Corriere della Sera quotes finance ministers from the G8 nations saying that while there were "signs of stabilization," the global economic outlook remained uncertain and urged a cautious approach.

France 24 says a French navy ship recovered six more bodies from the Atlantic Ocean, bringing to 50 the number of bodies found in the wake of the crash of the Air France jet which went down with 228 people on board. The race to find the black boxes and gather key evidence from human remains and debris gained urgency, with Brazil's military saying the search was becoming increasingly difficult and a tentative June 25 date for halting efforts had been set.

Montreal Gazette says some 25 nude cyclists took to the streets of Montreal to raise awareness of global environmental issues.

USA Today reports that Alaska's "Rat Island" is finally rat-free, 229 years after a Japanese shipwreck spilled rampaging rodents onto the remote Aleutian island, decimating the local bird population. After dropping poison onto the island from helicopter-hoisted buckets last autumn, there are no signs of living rats and some birds have returned. Rats have ruled the island since 1780, when they jumped off a sinking Japanese ship and terrorized all but the largest birds on the island.