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

The Times leads with the heading ‘Mintoff comes home’ as it reports on the cortege held yesterday.

The Malta Independent says Cottonera bid Mintoff an emotional farewell.

In-Nazzjon says Dom Mintoff started his final journey yesterday. It also reports an increase in passengers and cars to Gozo over Santa Marija.

l-orizzont reflects the people’s shouts – ‘Mintoff, Mintoff’.

The overseas press

Libya has said it captured more than 100 tanks from a militia group loyal to the country’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi. A security spokesman told Libyan Herald more than 25 rocket launchers and other heavy weapons had also been recovered and the militia’s leader arrested.

Meanwhile, RTT News quotes a spokesman for the Libyan prosecutor general saying Gaddafi’s son, Saif al-Islam, would go on trial next month in the western town of Zintan – defying an International Criminal Court request to try Saif itself in connection with his role in attacks on protesters and rebels during Libya's pro-democracy uprising last year. The Libyans have insisted that he should be tried in the North African nation itself on charges of financial corruption, murder and rape.

Reuters reports that at least three people were killed and eight were wounded in a tribal clash near the Libyan town of Zlitan. The clash was sparked by a dispute between two families from the al-Haly and al-Fawatra tribes. The clash follows the death of two people in Tripoli last week. It was the first deadly bomb attack in Libya after Gaddafi's fall and came after a freshly-elected assembly put security among its top priorities.

Dagbladet says a panel of judges would announce this morning (10 a.m. Malta time) whether they believe Anders Behring Breivik was criminally liable or insane when he killed 77 people in Norway last year. The two professional judges and three lay judges presided over a 10-week trial in which harrowing testimony was heard from survivors of the day long rampage. The 33-year-old admits detonating a bomb outside the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and then driving to the island of Utoya where he shot dead 69 people at a Labour Party summer camp.

Haaretz reports UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon plans to attend a summit meeting of leaders of some 120 non-aligned developing nations in Tehran next week, defying calls from the United States and Israel to boycott the event. It quotes a Security Council diplomat saying it was important for the secretary-general to go. He said Ban should not turn his back on the entire non-aligned movement because one member, Iran, happens to have a president who doubts the Holocaust and questions Israel's right to exist.

The French and German leaders have urged Greece to continue its economic reform programme. François Hollande and Angela Merkel presented a united front in advance of meetings with the Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaris, who wants more time to honour promised austerity measures. Samaris told the German daily Bild that Athens was committed to the austerity targets, but needed more flexibility to pull the country's economy out of its fifth year of recession.

The Times says Britain has written to the Ecuadorian embassy in London to try to resume talks over the fate of Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who fled into the building two months ago to avoid deportation to Sweden to be questioned about allegations of sexual assault and rape. Relations between the two countries broke down last week when Ecuador granted Assange asylum and Britain threatened to enter the embassy. The Guardian reports Ecuadorean officials have said that Britain should renounce its "threat" to storm the country's London embassy, and that Assange could remain inside the building for as long as he wanted – "two centuries" if necessary.

Mail& Guardian says that thousands have gathered to mourn the 34 miners killed in South Africa as the government announced a judicial inquiry to examine the conduct of the mine’s owner, the police who shot 34 people dead, the unions and the government. AFP reports South African politician Julius Malema, a vociferous opponent of President Jacob Zuma, has warned the country's mines should brace for a revolution unless workers' conditions improve.

The Sun has become the first newspaper in Britain to publish pictures of Prince Harry – third in line to the throne – in a naked embrace with a woman in a hotel room in Las Vegas. The paper said it believed the readers had a right to see pictures already published widely around the world.

Panamericana TV reports police in Peru have seized more than 16,000 dried seahorses ready to be exported illegally to Asian countries, where they are in demand for Chinese traditional medicine and for its alleged aphrodisiac uses. Seahorse fishing is illegal in Peru, but the high prices paid for seahorse powder abroad make it difficult for the authorities to enforce the ban. Seahorses are recognised internationally as an endangered species.

USA Today says Lance Armstrong looks set to lose his record seven Tour de France titles after sensationally dropping his fight against doping charges. Armstrong has issued a statement saying "enough is enough" and saying he will not fight charges brought by the US anti-doping agency. USADA said it would strip Armstrong – who became an inspirational figurehead for cancer survivors worldwide after beating testicular cancer – of all his Tour de France titles.

 

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