Press digest

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

The Times leads with the migrants’ riot at Safi detention centre. It also carries official comments that the prisons are not full of drugs.

The Malta Independent highlights the judicial protest filed by a priest against Lawrence Grech over sex abuse allegations.  

L-orizzont and In-Nazzjon also give prominence to the Safi detention centre riots and the judicial protest.

The overseas press

Wall Street Journal reports that France and Germany have proposed creating a post of head of the Eurozone to shore up economic governance of the monetary union. After a day of talks in Paris, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy have called for a "new economic government" for Europe that would meet at least twice a year with EU President Herman Van Rompuy as its head. Both leaders also called for all eurozone nations to enact constitutional amendments requiring balanced budgets. They said the moment was not right to replace 17 government bonds with a single one allowing weaker economies to borrow in cooperation with the powerhouse economies of France and Germany.

Caracas’ Economia Hoy says President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran have agreed to work together within Opec as economic concerns weighed on world oil prices. Oil prices declined on Tuesday by $1.23 to finish at $86.65 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange amid concerns about sluggish growth in Germany and economic troubles in Europe. During a telephone conversation, Chavez and Ahmadinejad also discussed the conflicts in Libya and Syria and said they planed to closely follow the situation in those countries and deepen efforts "to achieve peace".

Al Jazeera reports continued fighting in the Libyan coastal town of Zawiya as forces loyal to Gaddafi battle for control of the strategic area, 45 kilometres west of Tripoli. Both government and opposition forces claim to control the town. Meanwhile, Nato has said the firing of a Scud missile by pro-Gaddafi forces did not represent a new or more dangerous threat. US defence officials said the missile was launched near the coastal city of Sirte and aimed at rebel-held Brega, but landed harmlessly in the desert.

The Guardian says a British parliamentary committee, investigating the phone-hacking scandal, which led to the closure of Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, has said it might want to question his son James again following new evidence. The committee has published a letter from the paper’s former royal correspondent in which he alleged that senior staff were fully aware that the practice of hacking was widespread.

The Daily Telegraph says that two men have been jailed for four years after pleading guilty to inciting violence and disorder via Facebook. Their jail terms are the most severe yet to be handed out by the courts following the riots in London and other English cities. Meanwhile, the Daily Mirror claims that PM David Cameron's vow to get tough on crime has been exposed as a sham. The paper reports 181 police stations are being shut by cuts.

The Los Angeles Times announces that a $250,000 Rembrandt drawing, taken from an exhibition at a hotel in California, has been retrieved.  The 11-by-6-inch pen-and-ink drawing was found in an unlocked public area of an Encino church on Monday evening after a caller recognised it from news accounts of its weekend theft. The piece, called The Judgement, dates back to about 1655.

Le Jour says authorities in the Ivory Coast have reopened the main prison in Abidjan with its first 16 inmates – five months after it was closed following a break-out by more than 5,000 prisoners. The prison, which has now been refurbished, was built to house 1,300 people.

The Sun leads on the death of a British man on honeymoon in the Seychelles. Under the heading “Bride sees shark eat groom”, the paper reports he was attacked in shallow water and quotes a witness as saying it was like the movie Jaws. The Daily Mail says the victim was snorkelling off the shore when the tragedy happened and his bride, who was sunbathing, watched in horror from the beach.

Montreal Gazette says Quebec Prime Minister Jean Charest has laughed off a report posted by a hacker on the website of a Montreal daily, that he ad died of a heart attack. He said that the paper, Le Devoir, had often written him off, but not quite like that. In June, hackers posted an item on the website of the Canada's governing Conservative Party, falsely alleging Prime Minister Stephen Harper had been taken to hospital after choking at breakfast.