Press digest

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

The Times says Muscat spelt out 51 pledges and proposals in parliament yesterday. It also reports how the chairman of Gozo Channel resigned yesterday.

The Malta Independent also focuses on Dr Muscat's speech and the Gozo Channel chairman's resignation.

 l-orizzont says Joseph Muscat made 51 proposals in his reply to the Budget speech yesterday.

In-Nazzjon says Joseph Muscat yesterday did not say how he would cut power tariffs.

The overseas press

Spain needs a euro-region accord to “save and guarantee the solvency” of its debt amid surging bond yields. Bloomberg Television quotes Maria Dolores de Cospedal, deputy leader of the People’s Party which won Sunday’s general election, saying that Spain could continue financing itself at seven per cent. Speaking after a meeting of the party’s executive committee in Madrid, Cospedal said an agreement through a joint eurozone operational strategy to save and guarantee our sovereign debt had to come from the European institutions.

With the Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos in Brussels fighting for the aid the country needs to avoid bankruptcy, workers at home have been on the warpath over austerity. Kathimerini says trade unions blockaded energy company buildings to protest an emergency tax being collected through electricity bills. The government is facing an angry population hit by ongoing austerity cuts that have pushed Greece’s economy into a fourth year of recession.

The Independent reports that Hungary has made an official request for financial assistance from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union yesterday – just 18 months after the government in Budapest declared that it did not need any external help. The country's economy has been battered by the eurozone crisis. Hungary is forecast to have the lowest growth in 2012 among the 10 countries that joined the EU in 2004.

Al Ahram announces that Egypt’s civilian cabinet has submitted its resignation to the ruling military council as thousands of protester spent another night in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. It was not yet clear whether the resignation has been accepted. Ansa reports that at least 40 people have been killed and 430 injured in three days of violence as activists sought to fill the streets to force out the generals who have failed to stabilise the country, salvage the economy or bring democracy.

According to Al Horria,Tunisia’s main parties have reached agreement on the country’s top political posts. Hamadi Jebali, from the Islamist Ennahda party, is to become Prime Minister, Moncef Marzouki from Congress for the Republic is to be President while Ettakol's Mustafa Ben Jaafar is to be the new assembly's speaker. The assembly has been charged with drafting a new constitution. AFP news agency says it is to meet today for the first time to confirm the posts.

The New York Times quotes the Syrian ambassador to the United Nations saying a new draft UN resolution condemning Syria’s human rights violations, was a declaration of diplomatic and political war on his country. The proposal – sponsored by Britain, France and Germany – will come before the Human Rights Committee of the UN General Assembly later today.

USA Today says major Western powers took significant steps on Monday to cut Iran off from the international financial system, announcing coordinated sanctions aimed at its central bank and commercial banks. The United States, Britain and Canada announced a new set of sanctions following the recent report by the UN nuclear agency suggesting Iran was working toward a development of atomic weapons. The Iranians deny the allegations.

CNN reports that a special Congressional committee in the US has failed to agree on how to reduce the vast government debts, now running at $15 trillion. The “super committee” had been asked to reach a deal on cutting more than a trillion dollars of the budget. President Obama, seeking to calm jittery financial markets, said the US was not facing an imminent threat of default. He urged politicians to redouble attempts to agree on further deficit-cutting measures.

Several British media lead with the appearance of the parents of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler at the inquiry into media ethics. Sky News says private detective Glenn Mulcaire has denied deleting messages from Dowler’s phone as the murdered schoolgirl’s parents spoke of their agony over the News of the World hacking scandal. The investigator is accused of illegally accessing the teenager’s voicemails after she went missing in 2002 but his solicitor said he had “no reason” to erase any of them. The Independent says Milly’s mother told the inquiry that she did not sleep for three nights after police told her Mulcaire had hacked her daughter’s phone. It was that revelation last July which caused an international storm and led News International (NI) to close down the Sunday tabloid.

The Guardian and The Times carry a picture of actor Hugh Grant, who called on Britain to stand up to “bullying” newspapers as he accused the Mail on Sunday of listening to his voicemails. He told the Leveson Inquiry into media standards that a “bizarre” article in the newspaper in 2007 could only have come from hacking his phone. The story alleged that the actor’s relationship with then-girlfriend Jemima Khan was on the rocks because of his “late night phone calls with a plummy-voiced studio executive”. It is the first time the actor implicated a newspaper not owned by Rupert Murdoch. A spokesman for The Mail on Sunday refuted Grant's claim saying the information came from a freelance journalist and adding that his allegations “are mendacious smears driven by his hatred of the media”.