Press digest

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

The Times quotes the justice minister saying the courts should fine those people who do not turn up for court sittings, forcing postponements. It also says that electricity costs in Malta are now the sixth highest in the EU, according to an EU report.

The Malta Independent says Tom Hanks left Malta on Thursday at the end of his filming. It also reports on the inauguration of FCM Bank in Malta.

In-Nazzjon says more details have been revealed on Joseph Muscat’s ‘secret’ visit to Libya.

l-orizzont leads with a court decision that the dismissal of a nurse was invalid. It also says that the GWU disagrees with ‘indecent proposals’ to reduce the workforce at Enemalta. It also highlights a report on fireworks by the Church environment commission.

The overseas press:

The Financial Times reports on Spain making a €19 billion investment in Bankia, the stricken savings bank, in a bold bid to restore confidence in the financial sector. Madrid’s biggest bank nationalisation will take the total amount of state aid pumped into Bankia to €23.5 billion, and will give the government as much as 90 per cent control of Spain’s second-largest bank by domestic deposits. The Spanish government has been battling for weeks to reassure financial markets that it can contain the difficulties at its weaker banks, which lent aggressively during the property bubble and are saddled with about €180 billion of bad developer loans.

In an interview with The Guardian, IMF managing director Christine Lagarde insisted it was payback time for Greece and made it clear that the IMF had no intention of softening the terms of the country's austerity package. She said Greeks have to take responsibility and stop trying to avoid paying their taxes. Greece, which has seen its economy shrink by a fifth since the recession began, has been told to cut wages, pensions and public spending in return for financial help from the IMF, the European Union and the European Central Bank.

Kathimerini reports that the latest polls on the elections of June 17 in Greece show that support for the radical left party of Alexis Sypras was growing and would garner the biggest number of votes. However, the Conservatives of Nia Dimocratia (Nd) have bridged the gap. The survey gives Syriza 28.5 per cent, a record. In the May 6 election, it took took 16.8 per cent. But Nd has jumped to 26.0 per cent (18.9 per cent in elections ), while PASOK, which took 13.2 per cent go down again, to 12.5 per cent.

A new opinion poll for The Irish Times shows a significant majority in favour of the fiscal treaty referendum, even if the the result next Thursday remains with undecided voters. Asked how they were likely to vote on the treaty, 39 per cent of voters said Yes, 30 per cent said No and 31 per cent either still didn’t know or won’t vote. When those undecided voters are excluded, support for the Yes side stands at 57 per cent, up nine points, with No support at 43 per cent – and that's up seven points. The number of undecided voters has come down by 16 points since the last poll.

Eurasia Net says half a billion people in 55 countries are expected to watch singers from 26 countries battling out in tonight’s Eurovision Song Contest. It does more to bring people together than the EU will ever do. The 76-year-old UK entrant, Engelbert Humperdinck, will open the contest with a rousing power ballad called “Love Will Set You Free”. Bookmakers William Hill currently have Sweden's entry, Loreen, favourite to win at 5:4 with Russia's singing grannies 5:1 and Serbia and Italy both 10:1.

A man who New York police say has confessed to choking to death a six-year-old boy in a landmark US missing-child case has been admitted to hospital on the day of his first court appearance after he told psychologists he wanted to kill himself. The New York Times quotes the police saying Pedro Hernandez, 51, confessed this week to strangling Etan Patz in the basement of a Manhattan convenience store in 1979. Hernandez was taken to Bellevue Hospital to receive medication for an existing health problem. While he was there, psychologists questioned him about his mental state.

Avvenire reports Vatican police have arrested a man – reportedly Paolo Gabriele, the Pope's butler – on allegations of having leaked confidential documents and letters from the pontiff's private study to newspapers. The Vatican has said that the man had been caught in possession of secret documents. Last month, the Pope set up a special commission of cardinals to probe the leaks, which began in January. Among documents leaked to Italy's press are some that have dealt with allegations of corruption within the Vatican.

Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said the country's president should be elected by citizens rather than be appointed by Parliament. Ansa reports Berlusconi said he would consider running if the country switched to electing its president. He said he would like to see the Italian presidency modelled on France’s, where it holds more powers than the prime minister and can be extended to two terms. Berlusconi resigned as prime minister in November amid sex and financial scandals and Mario Monti's emergency government took over.

The Daily Star leads with the “tragic tales” of a chronically obese teenager cut free from her home by workmen after she grew too big to go outside. Georgia Davis, 19, weighed up to 60 stones (381 kilos) by the time she was urgently rescued from the house that had become her prison. Neighbours claimed that the teenager, from Aberdare in the South Wales valleys, had not been seen outside for up to three years. During that time her weight ballooned to such proportions it became a serious threat to her life.