Malta and international press digest

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

The local press is dominated by yesterday's blackout.

The Times says the blackout caused havoc.

The Malta Independent says there was a total shutdown at the power stations.

l-orizzont's front page is totally black except for the words - Malta yesterday.

In-Nazzjon says Malta was without electricity for hours because of a technical fault.

In other stories, In-Nazzjon gives prominence to the new interest subsidy scheme for hotels and restaurants, launched by the Prime Minister.

The Malta Independent gives space to an EU survey on the situation inc lassrooms, with Maltese teachers complaining how student behaviour affects their effectiveness.

The Press in Britain

The Daily Telegraph's top story concerns millionaire Conservative MP Brian Binley, who allegedly broke Parliamentary rules by claiming £50,000 in taxpayer-funded expenses to rent a flat from his own company.And The Scotsman reports that Labour MP Jim Devine became the latest casualty of the expenses row when he was banned from representing the party at the next election.i>The Independent leads with a condemnation by military officials of the decision to hold the Iraq War inquiry in secret.

The Daily Express reports on a £6-a-year phoneline levy put forward as a way to raise cash to pay for a super-fast broadband network across Britain.

The telephone tax is also the top story in The Times, which remarks that small businesses with multiple traditional copper lines could be hit with large bills.

The Daily Mail claims residents, fed up with having to find space for wheelie bins, are signing petitions and organising demonstrations.

The Herald reports that the Scottish Government's policy to assist homeowners facing repossession has been branded a "postcode lottery with no winners".

The legal decision not to seek tougher sentences for the abusers of Baby P leads in The Sun, which had pushed for longer jail terms.

According to the Daily Star, Jordan has admitted being on drugs throughout her marriage to Peter Andre.

And elsewhere...

EU Observer says EU leaders meet in Brussels today to discuss plans to tighten up financial monitoring in the wake of the economic meltdown.

Iran Globe says the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the Czech charge d'affairs to complain about the EU's reaction to the seven fatalities in Tehran, calling it "rude and interfering".

Il Tempo says hundreds of survivors of April's devastating earthquake in Aquila have protested in Rome, accusing the Italian government of taking too long with reconstruction efforts.

Prosecutors investigating allegations that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi misused government planes to fly entertainers and starlets to his holiday villa on Sardinia have reportedly decided to drop the case. ANSA and Apcom news agencies said the prosecutors investigated six flights and found no wrongdoing and no additional costs to the state because of the passengers.

The New Yorker reports that more than 100 victims of failed financier Bernard Madoff's multibillion-dollar fraud are urging a harsh sentence, saying he has ruined their lives.

Aftonbladet says at least 60 people have been arrested in connection with the distribution or downloading of child pornography across four Nordic countries.

Asia Times reports that a Chinese bar waitress who fatally stabbed a Communist Party official who demanded sex has been freed.

Gazeta Polska says an eight-year-old Polish boy saved his sister and three drunken adults from a fire by calling police and fighting the flames before help arrived. Unable to wake up his mother or two men, he called the emergency number, helped his five-year-old sister get dressed and repeatedly poured water on the burning door as he waited for help.

Los Angeles Times reports that the California porn film industry is in crisis after 16 hardcore actors and actresses have been found to be HIV positive. According to Californian health authorities, this is only the tip of the iceberg: 22 cases of AIDs have been found among hardcore film operators since 2004, apart from 2,378 cases of Chlamydia, 1,357 of gonorrhea and 15 of syphilis. Some 4,000 hardcore films are produced annually bringing in $13 billion in box-office returns.