Press digest

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

The Times says Sliema mayor Nikki Dimech has admitted to police that he asked a contractor for a commission, and he is expected to resign today. It also quotes former President Guido de Marco saying he feels ‘reborn'.

The Malta Independent says a prisoner is in critical condition after having been found unconscious.

l-orizzont reports claims that Our Lady has promised a healing stream of water at Borg in-Nadur. It asks if Malta will become the second Lourdes. The newspaper also reports that St George's Bay is being turned into a nudist beach during the night.

In-Nazzjon says the new Church parvis was inaugurated in Mosta last night. It also says that EU funds are being used for quality childcare centres.

The overseas press

Börzen Zeitung reports that two of the Germany's leading think tanks have urged that the retirement age should be raised from 65 to 70, saying the move was inevitable due to low birthrates and the rising costs of the cradle-to-grave welfare system. Germany has already decided to increase the retirement age to 67. The proposal echoed a similar assessment by the European Commission which said last month that the 27 member states needed to raise their retirement age to 70 by 2060. No country was planning to go beyond 68.

The Financial Times says Bank of England governor Mervyn King said there were ‘downside risks' that Britain could suffer a second recession. He predicted the economy would grow by 2.5 per cent this year - down from his May estimate of 3.4 per cent. He also warned of high inflation in 2010 and 2011 at a time when many workers' pay is frozen. The Daily Telegraph reports the number of people working beyond 65 was rising at its fastest rate since records began, as financial pressures force thousands of pensioners to delay retirement.

According to The New York Times, the United Nations has appealed for $460 million (€357 million) in emergency aid following Pakistan's floods. The funds would be used for food, clean water, shelter and medical supplies. However, the Pakistani Taliban has called on the government to turn down all foreign aid for the victims. Pakistan says 14 million people face direct or indirect harm, while the UN has warned that children were among the most vulnerable, with diarrhoea the biggest health threat and measles a concern.

La Nouvelle Releve says a grenade attack shook the Rwandan capital Kigali on Wednesday, wounding at least seven people as President Paul Kagame was declared winner of a much-criticised election devoid of real opposition. Kagame, who has led the tiny east African nation since some 800,000 people were butchered in a 100-day genocidal spree in 1994, won 93 percent of the votes in Monday's contest, the electoral commission said.

Moscow Times quotes Russian officials saying they had deployed high-precision air defence missiles in the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, sending a defiant signal to Tbilisi and the West two years after a war with Georgia. The S-300 missile system bolstered Moscow's military presence in the disputed territory and drew an angry response from Georgia.

Pravda says Russia admitted wildfires hit swathes of land contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster, raising fears that buried radioactive particles could be released into the air. The new wildfire caused by lightning flamed up near a major nuclear research centre in the Russian town of Sarov.

Expresso reports that summer wildfires sweeping Portugal blazed in three natural parks with around 1,500 firefighters called in to battle nearly 30 significant fires. Strong winds whipped up fires that have swept through Portugal since late July.

USA Today says military jurors have sentenced a former cook for Osama Bin Laden to 14 years in prison, the first such term handed down at Guantanamo since President Barack Obama took office. But Ibrahim al-Qosi has already agreed a plea deal with prosecutors, the details of which remain secret, raising the possibility that he could serve a much shorter sentence, or be repatriated to Sudan.

Tribune de Lyon reports that the body of an acclaimed French chef has been found hidden in a freezer - two years after he went missing. Detectives discovered the frozen corpse of Jean-Francois Poinard after his girlfriend Guylene Collober, 51, told her daughter "something unfortunate" had happened to him. Mr Poinard was a famous chef in the 1970s and 80s, and ran a series of restaurants in the French culinary capital of Lyon. He has been described by food critics as one of the 'great names' in gastronomy.

The Daily Express reports a central Manchester bus driver ordered a mother off his bus for breastfeeding her six-week-old baby. The 22-year-old nursing student, who was left to walk home a mile with her baby, is planning legal action. The bus company has launched an investigation into the incident. Breastfeeding in public is legal and health experts recommend it to young mothers as it protects babies against obesity, allergies, asthma and diabetes.