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

Times of Malta says the Armier boathouses are to get Smart meters.

The Malta Independent and l-orizzont say Italy has raised its airport security because of terrorism fears. The focus includes flights from Malta.

MaltaToday says Libya could be hit by UN sanctions.

In-Nazzjon reports how 14 investors filed a judicial protest against a financial services company.

The overseas press

A long-term ceasefire has come into effect in Gaza following talks between Israel and the Palestinians in Cairo. Al Ahram quotes Egyptian officials saying the deal called for an indefinite halt to hostilities, the immediate opening of Gaza’s blockaded crossings with Israel and Egypt, and a widening of the territory’s fishing zone in the Mediterranean. 

The US and four EU countries – France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom – have warned that interference from countries outside Libya would worsen divisions and slow down any hope of a democratic transition in the country. Deutsche Welle says their statement “strongly” condemned the escalation of fighting and violence in and around Tripoli, Benghazi, and across Libya, especially against residential areas, public facilities, and critical infrastructure, by both land attack and airstrikes.

Ansa reports Italian Interior Minister Angelino Alfano would later today in Brussels seek to define with EU Interior Affairs Commissioner Cecilia Malmstrom an exit strategy for Italy from its costly unilateral Mare Nostrum operation rescuing Mediterranean refugees. Italy wants the EU’s Frontex border protection agency and other EU countries to share responsibility with Italy for saving the thousands of refugees who seek to reach Italy from North Africa each year aboard desperately dangerous rafts and dinghies.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has said Italy must not be left to deal with the ongoing Mediterranean migrant crisis on its own. The New York Times quotes UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric saying, “An international effort must be made”. Dujarric’s comments followed on reports by UNHCR that since the beginning of the year 1,889 migrants have died in the Mediterranean while trying to reach Europe. Of those, 1,600 lost their lives since the beginning of June.

RIA Novosti quotes Russian President Vladimir Putin saying he and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko had discussed the need for a swift end to bloodshed in Ukraine, but it was up to Kiev to work out conditions for a ceasefire with separatist rebels.

Le Parisien reports French Prime Minister Manuel Valls has unveiled his new cabinet, a day after he and his former government stepped down because of a row with the former economy minister over government policy. The new cabinet, presented by Valls on Tuesday, was packed with Hollande loyalists.

An American man died last weekend in Syria while fighting for ISIS, two US officials told CNN – the latest evidence of the reach of a terror group that’s become increasingly powerful and feared in the eyes of Americans. 

Tribune de Genève quotes the World Health Organisation saying electronic cigarettes should face greater restrictions on their use, sale and promotion. It advocates they should be banned indoors and a clampdown on sales to minors with vending machines removed “in almost all locations”.

Avvenire says the Vatican has stripped the former papal envoy to the Dominican Republic of his diplomatic immunity, opening the way for him to be extradited to face sex abuse allegations in the country. The Polish priest Jozef Wesolowski was found guilty of sexually abusing young Dominican boys by the Vatican in June. He is the most senior Vatican official to be investigated for sex abuse.

Sky News says more than 1,400 children in Rotherham were sexually abused by paedophiles after police and council bosses turned a blind eye for fear of being labelled racist. 

USA Today reports a shooting instructor has died after he was accidentally shot while showing a nine-year-old girl how to use an automatic Uzi. 

Kyiv Post says the world’s tallest man, Ukrainian Leonid Stadnik, died on Monday aged 43 from a cerebral haemorrhage. Stadnik stood 2.57 metres, or 8 feet 5 inches, tall.
   

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