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

The Times reports that Richard Cachia Caruana 'fought back' before the Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday. It also reports on a 'pension trap' for those aged over 37.

The Malta Independent focuses on the developments in parliament yesterday.

MaltaToday says Franco Debono yesterday lambasted Home Affairs Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici but kept the country guessing on his voting intentions.

In-Nazzjon leads with the ‘Be a Prime Minister for a Day’ initiative by the PN.

l-orizzont leads with remarks by the Opposition leader that a prisoner died of a mysterious overdose shortly before he was to give details of serious crime. He called for an explanation.

The overseas press

CNN announces that the former governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, has clinched his place as the Republican challenger to Barack Obama in November’s US presidential election. Vote prediction shows he won comfortably in the Texas primary, passing the threshold of 1,144 party delegates required to confirm his selection.

The BBC reports that the international envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, has told President Assad that the country was “at a tipping point” following the killing of more than 100 civilians, including 49 children, in the town of Houla. After talks in Damascus, Annan said he had urged Assad to take “immediate steps” to implement the Syrian six-point peace plan. The UN estimates that more than 9,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in Syria and tens of thousands left homeless since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad's authoritarian rule began some 14 months ago. Syrian opposition groups put the death toll at over 12,000.

The Times’ front page features a picture of a two-year-old girl killed during a massacre in the Syrian city of Houla on Sunday, which the UN has said involved the targeted executions of children. Describing how the 49 children died, it said “the militia came in the night armed with knives and guns and the young victims were executed with a bullet in the head or a knife in the throat.

Meanwhile, Le Monde says that in a coordinated move signalling their condemnation of the massacre, the US, Britain, Canada France, Germany, Italy and Spain all expelled top Syrian diplomats. In recent months, Paris, Berlin, London and Rome pulled out their ambassadors from Damascus.

Adnkronos quotes Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi saying the recent leaks of confidential papal documents were “a brutal personal attack” on Pope Benedict. The documents, eventually published in the book “Sua Santità” by Gianluigi Nuzzi, allege corruption and bitter power struggles at the high level in the Church. Her had earlier rejected reports that five cardinals and a woman were being questioned over the deepening scandal. Lombardi also denied reports that envelopes with lists of names had been found in the apartment where confidential papal documents were found in the possessionof the pope’s butler, Paolo Gabriele, who was arrested last Friday. Gabriele has so far been charged with “aggravated theft,”

Ansa reports that an earthquake in northern Italy has killed 16 people with at least one more still missing. More than 300 are reported injured and 4,000 homeless. The epicentre was near Modena, close to a similar earthquake nine days earlier, which killed seven people and damaged many historic buildings. A number of the damaged buildings collapsed in yesterday’s tremor. The government has already earmarked €50 million of aid for the quake-hit area of Emilia-Romagna. The Italian farmers' association Coldiretti estimated that the damage to Emilia-Romagna's agriculture from the 20 May earthquake amounted to €200 million.

Fox News says groups of indegenous people in Brazil have blocked roads and occupied government buildings to demand better health care in their communities. Several ethnic groups staged a protest at the Health ministry in the capital, Brazilia, accusing the government of breaking its promises to improve health care.

CBC reports police in the Canadian capital, Ottawa, have launched a criminal investigation after a package containing a human foot was sent to the headquarters of the Canadian Conservative Party. Police are also investigating the discovery of a human torso in Montreal to see whether there was a link between the two cases.

Sky News says Euro 2012 organisers in Ukraine have introduced their answer to Germany's Paul the octopus: Fred the 'psychic' ferret. It will have 15 minutes in the Fan Zone to predict the winning team by choosing from plates of food bearing the flags of competing teams, with whichever bowl he eats from being declared the favourite. The organisers hope it would have the same success in predicting the winners of games in this summer's tournament as his eight-legged predecessor did for Germany's matches in the 2010 World Cup. Paul the Octopus, correctly “predicted” who would win every match Germany played in at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa as well as Spain's win over the Netherlands in the final.

 

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