Press digest

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

The Times quotes the European Commissioner responsible for social services as saying that the pension age has to rise throughout the EU.

The Malta Independent says a decision on a Greek loan payout has been delayed to October.   

l-orizzont reports that the Transport Authority is spending thousands of euro for private security guards to guard the residence of Conrad Pule’, who was targeted by a bomber in December

In-Nazzjon quotes the prime minister saying he is proud to have been on the right side of history on Libya.

The overseas press.

Voice of America says the Libyan National Transitional Council has been granted the Libyan seat in the UN General Assembly while the Security Council unanimously lifted some sanctions and eased others in an effort to help the nation as it moves into its new era. The council also gave its authorization for a UN mission to deploy to Libya that would provide support in preparing for elections. However, the resolution does not abolish the No Fly Zone over Libya but allows the national airline to fly again.

On the war front, Reuters reports diehard Gaddafi forces have defended an assault by Libyan interim government forces on Wani Balid and held off an advance on Sirte. Forced to retreat from Bani Walid by a heavily armed and well dug-in force estimated at several hundred, columns of fighters in pick-up trucks raced back out of the desert town. At Sirte, NTC forces closed in on pockets of resistance scattered across the city but there was no sign of a rapid end to a siege which has lasted for weeks.

Al Jazeera quotes Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announcing he would seek membership for Palestine from the UN Security Council next week, putting him on a collision course with Israel and the United States. Abbas’s plan, made public in a television address, seeks the same 1967 borders, meaning East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza would revert back to the Palestinians. More than 500,000 Israelis have settled beyond those lines. Israel, while officially accepting the idea of a Palestinian state, wants to leave nearly all of the borders where they are and keep control of Jerusalem.

The Jerusalem Post says the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a curt statement saying peace would not be achieved by “a unilateral approach” to the UN. Netanyahu says that the Palestinians must not be rewarded for avoiding direct talks and tough sacrifices. Some of his ministers have called for a range of punitive responses, including annexing portions of the West Bank or removing travel privileges from Palestinian officials. He has not expressed himself publicly on those suggestions.

The Financial Times reports Kweku Adoboli, the UBS trader alleged to have lost €1.4 billion in unauthorised trading, has appeared in court in London charged with fraud and false accounting. He did not enter a plea and has been remanded in custody until a committal hearing next Thursday. Britain’s Financial Services Authority and Swiss market regulators have announced they would begin an independent investigation into the bank’s “control failures.”

An inquiry has been announced into the deaths of the four miners in a flooded Swansea Valley colliery. South Wales Echo quotes Welsh Secretary Cheryl Gillan saying lessons had to be learned from the men’s death, described as a “stab through the heart” of a community. The four became stranded in a tunnel 90 metres underground on Thursday.

ABC says at least three people were killed and dozens injured when a vintage aircraft crashed into the ground at an air show in Nevada. At least 25 of the 60 people injured were critical. The authorities described the situation as a “mass casualty”.

Le Parisien says former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has told French police he made a pass at Tristane Banon in 2003, but denied allegations that he tried to rape the young author. The 62-year-old politician, who returned to France this month after the collapse of another rape investigation in New York, was understood to have admitted having made advances to Banon without being precise about the nature of such advances.

The Guardian reports that Britain's Metropolitan Police are seeking an order under the Official Secrets Act to force it to disclose the confidential sources of its reports on the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Editor Alan Rusbridger strongly condemned the move as “vindictive and disproportionate” and said the paper would resist it “to the utmost”. Among the information the police are said to be seeking is the source of The Guardian’s report disclosing the mobile phone of murdered teenager Milly Dowler had been hacked which prompted a massive public outcry.