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

The Times reports how friends and foes paid their respects to Dom Mintoff yesterday. It also reports how a flight was cancelled because of the Airmalta-ALPA dispute yesterday.

The Malta Independent says thousands flocked to Valletta yesterday to pay their respects to Dom Mintoff.

In-Nazzjon shows Lawrence Gonzi and his wife Kate in their final salute to Dom Mintoff. It also quotes the Central Bank saying the financial system remained strong despite the international crisi.

l-orizzont carries the heading 'With you to the end' and features a man throwing a kiss at the body of Dom Mintoff.

The overseas press

Deutsche Welle reports German Chancellor Angela Merkel has held talks with Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras in Berlin, emphasizing that she wanted "Greece to remain part of the eurozone".  Samaras, who today meets French President François Hollande in Paris, wants more flexibility in implementing Greece's austerity targets. During a joint press conference with Merkel after the talks, Samaras said his government did not want more aid but “breathing space". Merkel said that the 17 eurozone member states would have to wait until September for the so-called Troika progress report on Greece before making a decision about revised timelines.

The BBC says the Organisation of American States has reiterated its support for the inviolability of diplomatic missions. The vote was called for by Ecuador which accused Britain of threatening to storm its embassy in London where the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, had taken refuge to avoid deportation to Sweden. But the resolution was reworded after the UK insisted it had made no threat.

Asharq Al-Awsat, London’s Pan-Arab daily, quotes a Swiss radiology lab saying it had received the go-ahead from the widow of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to test his remains for poisoning by polonium. A spokesman for the lab at the Lausanne University Hospital Centre said traceability of polonium diminishes by half every 138 days and noted that this has occurred 20 times since Arafat died, aged 75, on November 11, 2004. The Palestinian Authority has also approved the probe.

Accepting a 21-year jail sentence that could eventually keep him imprisoned for life, Anders Behring Breivik regretted not killing more people in a bomb and gun massacre that left 77 people dead. Dagbladet  says the prosecution would also not appeal the ruling by Oslo's district court, which declared the right-wing extremist sane enough to be held criminally responsible for attacks.

CNN reports two people were killed and nine other injured after a gunman opened fire near New York City's Empire State Building. Police say the shooting was not an act of terrorism, but rather an incident involving a disgruntled worker. Jeffrey Johnson, 58, a fashion accessories designer, was fired a year ago from Hazan Imports, located near the Empire State Building.

According to EU Observer, opinion polls indicated that the Socialist party in Belgium, which has never formed part of a government, was running marginally ahead of caretaker Prime Minister Mark Rutte's Liberal Party. Dutch voters go to the polls on September 12 after the centre-right coalition led by Rutte collapsed last April over budget cuts.

Radio Liberty says a Russian court has acquitted opposition leader Garry Kasparov of charges that he participated in an unauthorized rally in support of jailed members of anti-Kremlin punk collective Pussy Riot. The former chess champion, was detained last week at a rally supporting the feminist group outside the Moscow court where three of its members were sentenced to two-year prison terms.

VOA quotes Amnesty International saying Gambia had executed nine death row inmates, including a woman, and "more persons are under threat of imminent executions in the coming days". In a national speech to mark the Muslim festival of Eid, President Yahya Jammeh had vowed to kill all 47 death row inmates by next month. The African Union called on Jammeh to renounce his plans. According to Amnesty International, three of those reportedly executed had been sentenced for treason, adding that many of the death row inmates were political prisoners or have faced unfair trials.

Britain's most prominent publicist said he was approached by two women who wanted to sell their photos of nude Prince Harry, suggesting that the world may soon be seeing more of the unusually exposed British royal. Max Clifford told BBC television the women were trying to sell their photographs, but that he had turned them down. The pictures, showing Harry in the nude during a party at his Las Vegas hotel suite, caused a global stir and raised questions about the prince's publicly-funded security detail.

Meanwhile, The Daily Mail reports Prince Charles has summoned his youngest son for a heart-to-heart talk this weekend over his naked Las Vegas romp. Royal sources stressed that 27-year-old Prince Harry would not be getting a ‘dressing down’ but Charles was keen to discuss his concerns ‘father to son’. Although they have already spoken over the phone, Harry would be asked to explain in person how he ended up playing a sleazy game of ‘strip billiards’ with a group of strangers in a hotel suite – some of whom then sold photographs of it to US celebrity gossip site TMZ.

Los Angeles Times announces the death of Jerry Nelson, the puppeteer behind Sesame Street's beloved Count von Count. He was 78. Jerry Nelson's most famous character was Sesame Street's numbers-obsessed vampire who taught millions of children how to count. He also operated several puppets on 1980s children's series Fraggle Rock and brought Sergeant Floyd Pepper to life on The Muppet Show.

AFP says a barber in rural Pakistan was recovering in hospital after being horrifically mutilated over a relationship with a married woman from an influential local family. The police said Yousaf Khan, 32, was kidnapped by seven members of a landowning family who gouged his eyes with a sharp knife before slitting his ears, nose, lips and tongue. The illicit affair had apparently been going on between Khan and the 25-year-old woman for two years.

Sky News reports that the ceremonial cauldron has been lit in London's Trafalgar Square to launch the Paralympic torch relay ahead of the games next week. The cauldron was lit by Claire Lomas, the first person to complete a marathon in a bionic suit. The flame will visit a number of London landmarks before the Games kick off in five days.

 

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