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

Times of Malta leads with how EU talks on the Greek financial crises will go to the wire. It also says schoolchildren will get a holiday for CHOGM.

In-Nazzjon reports that a director of  the new government security services company, Fort Ltd, 18, is the nephew of the chief of staff of minister Chris Cardona.

l-orizzont says Michael Pace Ross, former director of the National Statistics Office, has insisted he never passed information to Tonio Fenech, contradicting comments by the former minister.

The Malta Independent features comments by Sandro Chetcuti who again said problems at the Lands Department need to be addressed.

The overseas press

The bitter standoff between Greece and its international creditors was extended into the weekend, just days before Athens has to meet a crucial debt deadline which could decide whether it goes bankrupt and gets kicked out of the eurozone. Meanwhile, AFP quotes IMF spokesman Gerry Rice saying they expect Greece would make a €1.5 billion debt payment scheduled for June 30, as Athens continues to negotiate with creditors.

Metro says British Prime Minister David Cameron found his reform agenda sidelined at a tense EU summit as leaders warned he faces a tough negotiation ahead of a referendum on whether to leave the bloc. As he walked into the summit dominated by Greece and migration, Cameron said it marked a “significant milestone” in Britain’s bid to renegotiate ties with the European Union before a referendum due by the end of 2017.

According to Sputnik, President Putin has phoned President Obama to discuss the Ukraine crisis. Also on the agenda in their first call since February were Iran nuclear talks, the Islamic State militants and Syria. According to the White House, Obama told Putin he needs to live to up to the terms of a ceasefire deal with Ukraine which were agreed in February’s Minsk peace deal, “including the removal of all Russian troops and equipment from Ukrainian territory”.

French Justice Minister Christiane Taubira has told CNN affiliate BFMTV she “wouldn’t be surprised” if France decided to offer asylum to Edward Snowden and Julian Assange. Snowden has remained in Russia while WikiLeaks founder Assange has been holed up in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy for more than two years. She stressed it wasn’t her decision, but that of the French President and Prime Minister.

Al Akhbar says Islamic State militants launched swift counteroffensives yesterday on predominantly Kurdish areas of northern Syria, killing and wounding dozens and setting off car bombs. The two-pronged attack came two days after an Islamic State spokesman acknowledged that the group might lose some battles but would not be defeated.

Meanwhile, the Daily Star says the Islamic State group has sold 42 Iraqi women it had abducted from the Yazidi religious minority to its fighters in eastern Syria. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the women were being treated as “slaves” and were sold “for between €447 and €1,785”. The Yazidis are considered infidels by the jihadists. The UN has said the atrocities committed against the small community may amount to genocide.

Mail & Guardian quotes South African President Jacob Zuma saying a commission into the fatal police shootings of 34 people in 2012 during a wildcat strike at platinum producer Lonmin’s Marikana mine found the company did not do enough to stop the violence. Releasing the findings of a three-year inquiry, Zuma also said the commission found that allegations that Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa had used his influence to trigger the police action were “groundless”. Ramaphosa was on Lonmin’s board at the time.

Hollywood Reporter announces the death in California of actor Patrick Macnee, best known for playing agent John Steed in the TV series “The Avengers”. He was 93. Macnee appeared in “The Avengers” in the 60s with Ian Hendry, Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg and  Linda Thorson, and between 1976-77 in “The New Avengers” with Joanna Lumley and Gareth Hunt.

Los Angeles Times reports more than 1.2 million Americans are living with HIV – including about 156,300 who don’t realise it, according to a new report from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. That means 13 per cent of those who are infected with the virus that causes AIDS aren’t in a position to protect their health, or the health of others.

Meanwhile The Daily Telegraph says a group of British teenage students of the Isaac Newton Academy in Essex have won the ‘Teen Tech Award’ for the best innovation in the field of health: a condom that changes colour if it detects some sexually-transmitted diseases, such as syphilis or chlamydia. Daanyaal Ali, 14, co-inventor said they designed the condom, which they named ‘STEYE’, so that people could act immediately. The students won £1,000 and a visit to Buckingham Palace.

Il Tempo announces Rome’s city council has voted overwhelmingly to approve the Italian capital bidding to host the 2024 summer Olympic and Paralympics Games. Paris, Boston and Hamburg have already announced they are in the running and Istanbul, Doha and Budapest may also join the race. Bids to host the Olympics have to be presented by September 15 and the International Olympic Committee is due to pick a winner in 2017. Rome hosted the Olympics in 1960.

 

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