The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta quotes Labour MP Etienne Grech saying sex between minors should not be considered a crime.
The Malta Independent reports on a major migrant rescue operation in the Mediterranean. It also says Polidano has denied supplying concrete for the new power station foundations. The newspaper had yesterday reported on weak concrete found in some of the power station piles, mentioning Polidano.
In-Nazzjon leads with comments by Simon Busuttil that he wants to clean up politics.
l-orizzont says Simon Busuttil is to visit China next month.
The overseas press
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has suffered a major setback in parliamentary elections, with his ruling AKP party failing to win an absolute majority and would need to form a coalition. Erdogan was banking on a big victory to pave the way to turn Turkey into a presidential republic.
G7 leaders vowed at a summit in the Bavarian Alps yesterday to keep sanctions against Russia in place until President Putin and Moscow-backed separatists fully implement the terms of a peace deal for Ukraine. Deutsche Welle says the Ukraine conflict and a long-running debt stand-off between Greece and its European partners dominated the first day of the annual meeting hosted by Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Le Quotidien reports preliminary results in yesterday's landmark referendum showed that only about one in five voters backed giving long-time foreign residents in Luxembourg the right to take part in national elections. The referendum was called by liberal prime Minister Xavier Bettel as part of his modernising agenda for the grand duchy. If his proposal had been accepted, it would have increased the country’s electorate by as much as 50 percent.
Belgian prosecutors have launched an investigation into allegations of widespread surveillance by Germany, which is alleged to have helped the US spy on Berlin’s allies in Europe. Jean-Pascal Thoreau, a spokesman for federal prosecutors, told AFP, they want to learn the exact nature of the acts that may have been committed and could be prosecuted. According to Belgian press reports the probe was opened on Friday.
El Universal reports protesters have burned ballots, blocked polls and shut down the vote in at least one Mexican town. At least three polling stations were prevented from opening after masked protesters and the parents of 43 students allegedly killed by a police-backed drug gang last year seized and burned ballots in Tixtla, Guerrero, cancelling the vote in the town of 40,000. The students’ parents, along with a loose coalition of teachers’ unions and activists, had vowed to prevent the vote until justice was served.
Reuters reports Israeli aircraft struck the Gaza Strip yesterday after the latest in a series of Palestinian rocket attacks that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the international community of ignoring. The Omar Brigades, a Palestinian group that supports Islamic State, claimed responsibility for the salvo, which, like the Israeli strike, caused no casualties. Israel closed its border crossings with the Hamas-controlled enclave and Netanyahu hinted at a stronger Israeli military response if the cross-border attacks persist.
Meanwhile, a far-right Israeli education minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, has called for the international community to endorse his country’s 1981 annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights, where he called for increased Jewish settlements. Haaretz says he accused the EU of hypocrisy and double standards, saying it did not treat occupied northern Cyprus or Western Sahara in the same way it treats the Golan.
German sports agency SID reports the son of Formula One legend Michael Schumacher, Mick, suffered a fractured hand during a Formula Four race. The injury came after his first crash during the junior driver series. Schumacher won the third race of the season in Oschersleben six weeks ago. His father is still recovering from serious head injuries suffered during a skiing accident in December 2013.
Russia and Qatar could lose their 2018 and 2022 World Cup soccer tournaments, respectively, if evidence surfaces that they “bought” their hosting rights with bribes, FIFA’s audit and compliance committee chairman Domenico Scala told Swiss newspaper Sonntagszeitung.