Press digest

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

The Times says Libya has reassured Joseph Muscat about the safety of the BP oil well in the Mediterranean. It also says that the government has made a better offer to the Labour Party about its Siggiewi club.

The Malta Independent says tourism was up 11% in six months. It also says that SMEs are taking more time to emerge from the recession.

MaltaToday says members of the PN council have warned the prime minister that a 'yes' vote in a referendum on the introduction of divorce could cost him his job.

In-Nazzjon reports disputes within the PL regarding Fgura council. It also says MIA reach a record in the number of passenger movements in July.

l-orizzont warns that government purchases of medicine for polio are too few. It also says that the government has to reply by today to EU questions on the power station issue.

The overseas press

The New York Times says the UN Security Council has met in urgent session following the worst border clash for years between Israeli and Lebanese soldiers. The council said it was deeply concerned and urged both sides to show the utmost restraint. An Isreali army officer, at least two Lebanese soldier and a Lebanese journalist were killed in the incident.

Meanwhile, Beirut's The Star says Hezbollah fighters, who battled Israel four years ago, took no part in the exchange of fire. But it quotes the group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah saying his guerrillas would not stand silent if Israel attacked the Lebanese army in the future.

In an interview Le Monde, Pakistanti President Asif Ali Zardari has warned that the war in Afghanistan was being lost, underlining that coalition forces had "under-estimated the situation on the ground" there.

The Dominion Post says New Zealand has suffered its first combat fatality in Afghanistan since its small military force was deployed there in 2003. One soldier was killed when miliants ambushed a patrol. The dead soldier was the first New Zealand to be killed anywhere in the world in the past 10 years.

The Times-Picayune reports that BP has started a long-awaited operation, known as a static kill, to permanently seal its raptured underwater well in the Gulf of Mexico almost 5.7 kilometers beneath the surface of the sea.. Engineers are forcing heavy drilling mud in the blown-out well that has brought environmental and economic ruin to the Gulf and spilled more oil into the sea than ever before. They will then pump cement into it to close off the source of the leak.

El Pais predicts holidaymakers could face air chaos later this month if Spanish air traffic controllers vote for a strike today over what they call excessive working hours. The controllers' union said if its 2,300 members back action, a date for a stoppage would be decided later. The union, which represents 95 per cent of the controllers, said the strike was proposed to protest over recent government plans to change in working and rest hours. It says the changes will mean some controllers working up to 28 days a month.

Bild reports that the German constitutional court has decided to give unmarried fathers the right to sue for joint custody of their children. The European Court of Human Rights provoked Tuesday's decision last December, when it ruled that Germany's custody rules were contrary to both discrimination laws and Article 8 of the European Human Rights Convention, which protects the right to family life.

Harare's The Herald says the Zimbabwean foreign ministry has demanded that three western diplomats apologise for walking out of a burial ceremony on Sunday for President Mugabe's sister. The envoys from Germany, the United States and the European Union left after Mr Mugabe said, during his address, that western nations "should go to hell" for interfering in his country's internal affairs.

El Universal quotes Mexico's intelligence chief saying that three years after President Calderon deployed the army to fight off drug gangs, the level of violence was still growing. He said security forces were involved in confrontation with the gangs on a daily basis. Some 28,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since late 2006.

The New York Post confirms that a plan to build an Islamic cultural centre including a Mosque during the former World Trade Centre in New York has cleared its first bureaucratic hurdle. Opponent say its disrespectful to the memory of the 3,000 killed in the 2001 attacks.

Abrar reports that the Iranian government is likely reject Brazil's offer to give refuge to a woman convicted of adultery and initially sentenced to death by stoning. They were reacting to President Lula da Silva's offer to give 43-year-old Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani political asylum. The case of triggered an international outcry which prompted Iran to withdraw the stoning part of her sentence. The mother of two could still face execution by hanging.

In the UK, the Daily Mail reports that a naked couple, frolicking on top of a four-storey building in Aberdeen, had to be rescued by civil protection personnel after the women fell through the slates. The weather on the day was cloudy with light rain and only reached a high of 17⁰C.