The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta and the other newspapers lead with the oil deal with Libya which will see Malta buy oil at favourable rates. It also reports that the Police Commissioner has ordered an internal inquiry into what led the CID to wrongly accuse a man of committing a hold-up in Birkirkara.
The Malta Independent also leads with the Malta-Libya oil deal. It also reports on increased French pressure on tax havens.
l-orizzont describes the Libya-Malta deal as ‘historic’. It also reports how a Bulgarian worker died in a swimming pool yesterday.
In-Nazzjon says many Gozitan teachers have reported political transfers to Malta.
The overseas press
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has told French daily Le Figaro that a western attack on his country could set off a “regional war”. He challenged President Obama and President Hollande and to provide convincing proof that he had used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. Military intervention against his country, he added, would “set off a powder keg” that “everyone would lose control of once ignited”.
The Syrian government will attack US interests in the Middle East in the event of a military strike, deputy foreign minister Faisal Mekdad told Lebanon's al-Manar TV channel, the TV network owned by the militant Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, ally of President Assad. Mekdad, who is considered to be highly influential in the Assad government, said, “Any act of aggression towards Syria is aggression toward the Arab world and the region.
A top Vatican official has warned a military attack ion Syria by western powers could cause “a war of global dimensions”. Monsignor Mario Toso, head of the Vatican's justice and peace council, told Vatican Radio the conflict was a powder keg primed to explode into a war of global dimensions. Toso's remarks echoed comments made by Pope Francis on Sunday in St Peter's Square and in a tweet on Monday calling for peace and an end to all wars.
French authorities have declassified an intelligence report which claims that President Assad’s regime has staged at least three chemical attacks in Syria since April, including the August 21 attack on a Damascus suburb. Le Monde says the report alleged nobody but the Assad regime could have carried out the August 21 chemical attack, which it said at least 281 deaths could be attributed to. The analysis based that count in part from dozens of videos culled by French intelligence services.
France 24 reports French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault has said France was determined to punish the use of chemical weapons by the Assad regime with firm and proportionate action. Speaking to the press following a meeting of senior lawmakers at which evidence was presented for attacking Syria, Ayrault made it clear, however, that “action would be neither aimed at toppling the regime nor of liberating Syria”.
NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in Brussels he is convinced the Syrian government used chemical weapons and insisted a strong reaction is needed to show dictators that such weapons cannot be used with impunity. Le Soir reports he said the alliance would defend Turkey if the member state is attacked in retaliation following a strike against Syria.
Ria Novosti quotes Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying information the US showed Moscow to blame the Syrian regime for the alleged chemical weapons attack was “absolutely unconvincing”. He said “there was nothing specific” in the evidence: “no geographic coordinates, no names, no proof that the tests were carried out by the professionals”.
China has urged the US not to take unilateral action against Syria. Xinhua news agency quotes Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei saying Washington briefed Beijing about the matter and that China is concerned about chemical weapons use but that the country opposes the US acting alone.
ABC says Australia offered moral support for a military strike in Syria. Patrick Low, Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr's spokesman, said US Secretary of State John Kerry called last week and that Australia supports the US taking action. He said Kerry didn't ask for military assistance and Australia didn't offer it. Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott defended his controversial weekend comments on the Syrian civil war. He had described both sides in the conflict as “baddies versus baddies”.
A UN envoy to Syria has warned that violence there was pushing the country towards genocide. Mokhtar Lamani told the BBC that secterianism was frightening. With a huge movement of people from villages.
The head of the UN refugee agency in Syria said seven million Syrians, or almost one-third of the population, have been displaced by the country's civil war. Tarik Kurdi told The Associated Press that five million of the displaced are still in Syria while about two million have fled to neighbouring countries. Before the conflict's outbreak Syria had a population of about 23 million people.
In other news...
Libya Herald quotes the Libyan Government saying the daughter of Libya's former intelligence chief has been abducted after leaving a prison in Tripoli. Justice Minister Salah al-Marghani said a police convoy escorting Anoud Abdullah al-Senussi from al-Rayoumi prison was ambushed by heavily armed gunmen, just outside the prison gate. Senussi had just finished a 10-month prison sentence for entering Libya with a forged passport in October 2012.
AFP says Brazil and Mexico have summoned the US ambassadors over allegations that US Government spied on their presidents. Both countries demanded the Americans explain whether their National Security Agency had illegally monitored communications by Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto. The explanations were demanded after Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald told Brazil's TV Globo news programme “Fantastico” on Sunday that secret documents leaked by Edward Snowden showed how US agents had spied on communications between aides of Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff.
The New York Post says police are hunting for a gunman who shot dead a one-year-old baby in a pushchair. Antiq Hennis, was shot in the face as gunfire rang out in the Brownsville area of Brooklyn on Sunday evening. Police believe the target had been the boy's father and the violence could be gang-related.
The New York Times says the American endurance swimmer Diana Nyad has become the first persons to swim from Cuba to the United States without a shark cage. The 64-year-old was cheered by the crowds in Florida as she emerged dazed and sunburned after nearly 53 hours in the ocean, a two-day, two-night swim from her starting point in Havana. It was her fifth attempt.