The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says a magistrate yesterday had harsh words for Appoġġ over its handling of the German children who were secretly flown out of Malta two weeks ago, saying the agency had shown it was “less able” to take care of the children than the mothers themselves.
The Malta Independent says that while most Maltese in Libya are in Tripoli, where the main airport was closed down following fierce fighting by rival militias, others are stranded in the desert and short of supplies.
In-Nazzjon says Opposition leader Simon Busuttil has challenged the government to publish the bill on local councils for the people to know what it planned to do about the postponement of local council elections.
L-Orizzont reports about the setting up of the National Trade Union Forum described by President Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca as a historic event.
International press
France 24 quotes UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay warning Israel that targeting civilian facilities in Gaza might amount to war crimes, and calling for an end to the 16-day war. Pillay, noted that hostilities had resulted in the deaths of more than 600 Palestinians, including at least 147 children and 74 women. She said hundreds of homes and other civilian buildings had been destroyed or damaged and more than 140,000 Palestinians displaced.
al bawaba reports a senior Hamas official has said progress had been made in negotiations to end the Gaza conflict but the Islamist militants needed detailed guarantees that Israel would ease its blockade of the enclave. Hamas’s chief Khaled Meshaal on Wednesday again insisted on a ceasefire only after an end to the siege, in force since militants kidnapped an Israeli soldier in 2006. The official, who works closely with Meshaal, said however that they understood that the blockade would be eased only after the ceasefire, but they required a schedule in place first.
VOA News says the UN World Food Programme has appealed for $10 million in emergency aid to help Palestinian civilians facing food shortages in Gaza. WFP officials say 115,000 people were in urgent need of food assistance with ready-to-eat meals starting to run out. There are also shortages of fresh drinking water and electricity. The WFP says it is airlifting food from Dubai and is also electronically distributing vouchers to civilians to buy food from shops that still have supplies. It needs $30 million for the rest of the year for both emergency relief and for continuing its regular operations in Gaza and the West Bank.
De Telegraf reports thousands of people lined the roads in the Netherlands yesterday, solemnly applauding the slow procession of 40 black hearses carrying the bodies of passengers killed when their passenger jet was shot down over eastern Ukraine. A memorial service was held in Hilversum for the 298 passengers and crew killed when the plane was shot down six days ago. Among the dead were 193 Dutch. Outside the service, mounds of flowers were laid out on the ground in the form of an airplane.
Meanwhile, Het Parool says Dutch authorities have delivered the plane’s two black boxes containing data and voice recordings from the MH17 flight to Britain’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch for download. The Dutch experts said there was no evidence the data had been tampered with. Ukraine has placed the Dutch in charge of investigating the disaster.
Asia Times reports a TransAsia Airways turboprop plane crashed on its second attempt at landing during a thunderstorm on an island off Taiwan, killing 47 people and setting buildings on fire. No one was killed or hurt in the buildings. Eleven injured people on the plane were taken to hospital.
Arizona Post says a prisoner, convicted in 1989 of the murders of his girlfriend and her father, took nearly two hours to die after officials began injecting him with drugs that should have taken his life in a matter of minutes. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer ordered a full review of the two-hour execution of death row inmate Joseph Wood, saying that while justice had been done she was concerned by how long the lethal injection procedure took.
Nigerian television has shown the aftermath of two suicide bombings in the north Nigerian city of Kaduna, one aimed at opposition leader and ex-president Muhammadu Buhari and another at a moderate Muslim cleric about to lead a crowd in prayer, that killed at least 82 people. Reuters says the attacks bore the hallmarks of Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which considers all those who do not share its views to be enemies. But it may also have been linked to politics before the 2015 elections.
Glasgow Herald says Queen Elizabeth II opened the 2014 Commonwealth Games after a moving and colourful ceremony staged at the famed home of Celtic football club. The 20th Commonwealth Games will feature 17 sports across 11 days of competition with more than 4,500 athletes from 71 nations competing, making the event the biggest Scotland has ever hosted. Among the colour, there was a sombre, immaculately-observed minute's silence to remember the 298 people who died in the Malaysia Airlines MH17 flight disaster. Eighty-two of the victims were from Commonwealth nations.
The herbs rosemary and oregano not only enhance the taste of food but tests find they are loaded with healthful compounds that work to reduce blood sugar as effectively as anti-diabetic drugs. The Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a publication of the American Chemical Society, says researchers at the University of Illinois found the herbs contain polyphenols and flavonoids, compounds that interfere with a diabetes-related enzyme, which is also the target of prescription drugs to control blood sugar. The incidence of type two or adult-onset diabetes has exploded worldwide with the easy availability of cheap fast food.