The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
All newspapers in Malta today report about yesterday's arrival of 81 migrants and the recovery of the dead bodies following a rescue on Friday night.
Times of Malta says the temporary disappearance of €4,000 from Gozo Channel ticket sales was only reported to the police two weeks after the incident and only after the media got wind of what happened.
The Malta Independent says the blacklisted Chinese company that gifted Malta with a free £4 million feasibility study on building a bridge between Malta and Gozo has a history of backhander deals. In another story it says the government has organised a one-off relief flight from Mitiga Airport in Libya today.
l-Orizzont says that the former President Eddie Fenech Adami, then leader of the Nationalist Party had encouraged Mr Justice Wenzu Mintoff not to resign from the PL when he had problems with the party 25 years ago.
In-Nazzjon quotes PN leader Simon Busuttil saying that the government’s decision to approve by Parliament a bill that will lead to the privatisation of Enemalta reflected a lack of transparency.
International press
Al Ayyam says Palestinians took to the streets of Gaza and Hebron after Hamas’s armed wing claimed to have captured an Israeli soldier. Yesterday, the Gaza crisis saw its bloodiest losses in a nearly two-week Israeli offensive, with some 100 Palestinians and 13 Israeli soldiers killed. Palestinian health officials say the death toll from nearly two weeks of Israeli bombardments of Gaza has surpassed 400, mostly civilians. The death toll of Israelis rose to 18 soldiers and two civilians.
Speaking on ABC’s This Week programme, US Secretary of State John Kerry has urged a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and pinned the blame for the escalating conflict on the Palestinian Islamist group. He also blamed Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine for Thursday’s downing of the Malaysia Airlines jet, spelling out “overwhelming evidence” of Russia’s complicity in supplying pro-Moscow insurgents with the sophisticated anti-aircraft systems used to down the plane.
Meanwhile, Kyiv Post reports armed pro-Russian separatists forced emergency workers to hand over all the bodies recovered from the crash site. International monitors and Ukrainian officials said the bodies of 192 victims were taken away and loaded onto refrigerator wagons on trains at Torez station, which were said to be headed for rebel-held Donetsk. Kiev's emergency officials said 251 bodies had been recovered so far.
The New York Times says Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has called for the bodies of MH17 victims to stop being “used as pawns” as she lobbies the UN Security Council to support an Australian-sponsored resolution demanding access to the crash site in eastern Ukraine.
The Age reports Australia’s former High Court judge Michael Kirby has paid tribute to AIDS conference delegates killed in the Malaysia Airlines crash, and called on the Prime Minister to take a leadership role in the fight against the virus. Addressing the opening of the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, he told the researchers, policy makers and community leaders that inaction and obstruction by some world leaders is hampering the fight against AIDS.
Libya Herald reports heavy fighting around Tripoli’s airport has killed at least four people. The renewed battle between the Zintan militia, which controls the airport, and armed Islamist fighters spilled into residential neighbourhoods around the airport, where a stand-off began one week ago, paralysing flights into and out of the capital. At least six people were killed and 25 injured in last week's clashes.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammonds has told the BBC that if Britain did not get good renegotiation, it should leave the European Union. He said his government would put it to the British people to decide once there is substantive renegotiation “over the next nine, 10 months”.
Times of India says the police have arrested a man in connection with the alleged rape of a six-year-old girl at her school. The man, a skating instructor, had a laptop with indecent videos of children. The arrest came after two parents threatened they would stop sending their children to the school until they had assurances about better security for the students.
Asian Times says the biggest typhoon to hit southern China in 40 years has killed 17 people. At least 94 people were killed when Rammasun ravaged the northern Philippines earlier this week. The storm is also affecting Vietnam, where heavy rain is expected before it starts to weaken later today, Monday.
Los Angeles Times announces the death of James Garner, the US star of hit TV series “The Rockford Files” and “Maverick” and films including “The Great Escape”. He was 86. Garner had suffered ill health since a severe stroke in 2008. In 1977, he won an Emmy for the role in “The Rockford Files”.
Le Parisien reports French President François Hollande is preparing to make official his relationship with Julie Gayet by marrying her on August 12, the date of his sixtieth birthday. Valerie Trierweiler, 49, had to leave the Elysee when Mr Hollande’s secret affair with Julie Gayet, a 42-year-old actress, was made public.
The Daily Mail says a benefits cheat has been given 178 years to pay back the money she swindled from taxpayers. Nicola Daly claimed £100,000 in council tax, housing benefit and income support payments for almost nine years. Daly has started a 16-month jail sentence for the fraud which was only discovered after her elderly applied for residential care and declared that she owned a house where her son Steven Randall and Daly both lived. The court heard she is repaying the amount at a rate of £50 a month, which will take a staggering 178 years for the total to be recovered.