The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times leads with Jose' Barroso's letter to the president of the European Parliament where he told them that Tonio Borg is qualified to become Commissioner. It also follows up the warning given by Transport Malta to Arriva to raise the standard of the bus service.
The Malta Independent says that while the authorities are blaming Arriva for the poor bus service, Labour has blamed the authorities.
In-Nazzjon says the police are to receive a substantial pay raise. It also features Barroso's letter on Tonio Borg.
l-orizzont says local fuel prices are among the highest in Europe, relative to salaries.
The overseas press
Israeli aircraft struck crowded areas in the Gaza Strip and killed a senior militant with a missile strike on a media centre as it broadened its targets in the six-day-old offensive meant to quell Hamas rocket fire on Israel. The New York Times reports that the top leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, dared Israel to launch a ground invasion of Gaza and dismissed diplomatic efforts to broker a cease-fire in the conflict. He suggested that the Israeli infantry mobilisation on the border with Gaza was a bluff.
Huffington Post says overall, the offensive that began last Wednesday killed 105 Palestinians, including 55 civilians, and wounded some 850 others, including 225 children. On the Israeli side, three civilians have died from Palestinian rocket fire and dozens have been wounded. Hamas fighters have fired more than 1,000 rockets into Israel in the current round of fighting, including 95 yesterday, among them one that hit an empty school in the coastal city of Ashkelon while 29 were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile battery.
The rising toll came as Egyptian-led efforts to mediate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas got into gear. Al Ahram reports that while Israel and Hamas were far apart in their demands, both sides said they were open to a diplomatic solution – and prepared for further escalation if that failed. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has also arrived in Cairo to aid negotiating efforts. He plans meeting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Arutz Sheva said Israeli cabinet met late into the night to decide its next move, but Israeli soldiers in Erez said they had received orders to stand down from the high alert that had them poised Sunday to storm across the border.
Le Soir reports EU Foreign ministers have recognised Syria's newly-formed Syrian National Coalition as the "legitimate representative" of the Syrian people. The move stops short of official diplomatic recognition, which must be decided by each member state. Meanwhile, the BBC reported that Islamist rebel groups in the Syrian city of Aleppo rejected the new Western-backed opposition coalition.
La Tribune says Moody's has stripped France of its top government bond rating, blaming France's poor economic growth outlook and its exposure to contagion from indebted eurozone nations. Moody's downgrade came 10 months after a similar move from Standard & Poor's.
France 24 announces that Jean-François Copé has been declared the new leader of the opposition Conservative Party by the party’s internal electoral body after a contested weekend vote that was plagued by allegations of fraud on both sides. Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s centre-right opposition UMP voted for its next leader in a Sunday poll that pitted former Prime Minister François Fillon against the UMP’s Secretary General Copé in a campaign that split the party and sparked widespread derision. The vote comes six months after former UMP leader and President Nicolas Sarkozy was defeated by Socialist François Hollande.
Irrawady reports US President Barack Obama was greeted by tens of thousands of people when he made an historic first trip to Burma (Myanmar) on Monday. He promised Burma increased US support as long as it maintained its path towards democracy.
El Pais says Spain is to offer foreigners residency permits if they buy houses worth more than €160,000 as part of an attempt to reduce the country’s huge number of unsold homes. Spain has more than 700,000 unsold houses following the collapse of its property market in 2008.
Patna Daily reports at least 18 women and children were killed and more than a dozen people seriously hurt in a stampede when a makeshift rope bridge collapsed at a Hindu festival in eastern India. The incident near the holy Ganges river occurred as thousands of devotees rushed to offer prayers to the setting sun as part of the Hindu ritual of Chhath.
Cold-blooded Estibaliz Carranza, 34, pleaded guilty to killing her husband and her boyfriend in court in Vienna, Austria, yesterday on the first day of the hearing. Austrian Independent says ice cream parlour owner Carranza – dubbed the Ice Lady by local media – admitted killing the men, cutting them up into pieces and cementing them into her floor in the Austrian capital before fleeing to Italy. She admitted today in court that her actions were ‘repulsive’. Under Austrian law despite the guilty plea, it is the court that decides what she is guilty of. It is expected the verdict will be given on Thursday.
Findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows great apes can experience a mid-life crisis just as humans. A study of 508 captive chimpanzees and orangutans from around the world found that their sense of wellbeing was highest in youth and old age, but dipped in middle age. Exactly the same U-shaped curve of happiness is seen in humans, who appear most content early and late in their lives.
Newsweek reports that an Egyptian jihadi who was jailed by former President Hosni Mubarak has called for the Sphinx and pyramids at Giza to be razed to the ground. Invoking the destruction by the Taliban of two giant statues of the Buddha in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, Murgan Salem al-Gohary, called for similar action in Egypt, saying that “God ordered Prophet Muhammad to destroy idols.”