The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta says there is a strange calm in Athens as Greece is set to default on an IMF loan tonight.
The Malta Independent focuses on the tallinja cards and quotes a bus company official as saying that all measures are in place to beat ticket cheats.
In-Nazzjon reports how former police inspector Daniel Zammit has shares in a company which ran gentlemen’s clubs.
l-orizzont says that a manager at the Central Bank, who was in the circle of ‘spies’ against the government, had wanted to feed negative stories to the EU ahead of talks on the excessive deficit procedure.
The overseas press
Greece has threatened to seek a court injunction against the EU institutions, both to block the country’s expulsion from the euro and to halt asphyxiation of its banking system. Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis told London’s Daily Telegraph, that “EU treaties did not make any provision for euro exit... our membership is not negotiable”. The defiant stand came as Europe’s major powers warned in the bluntest terms that Greece would be forced out of monetary union if voters reject austerity demands in Sunday’s referendum.
Meanwhile, Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras said European leaders did not have the nerve to throw his country out of the eurozone. In an hour-long interview on ERT TV, he said the cost to the 19-nation bloc of Greece leaving would be “enormous”. He warned, however, that in case of a “yes” vote, his government would resign.
Ta Nea reports some 17,000 people took to the streets of Athens and Thessaloniki to say “No” to the latest offer of a bailout deal, accusing Greece’s international creditors of blackmail. Banners held aloft by demonstrators read “Our lives do not belong to the creditors!”
The Wall Street Journal says Standard & Poor’s downgraded Greece’s credit rating deeper into junk territory yesterday. The agency said the government’s call for a referendum was a further indication that the Tsipras government would prioritize domestic politics over financial and economic stability, commercial debt payments, and eurozone membership.
Avvenire reports Pope Francis has deplored “the atrocious, inhumane and inexplicable persecution of Christians still taking place in many parts of the world,often beneath the eyes and sealed lips of all”. He made the remarks during a sermon as he celebrated mass at St Peter’s Basilica as Rome marked the feast day of its patron saints, Peter and Paul.
Magyar Hirlap says Hungarian police fired tear gas to contain a riot at an overcrowded refugee camp in the eastern city of Debrecen, after fighting broke out between asylum seekers over a religious dispute. The disturbance began after one migrant ran off with another’s copy of the Koran and trampled on it. Several hundred other asylum-seekers joined the fracas, which spilled out of the camp, where police said some cars in the parking lot were damaged and bins set on fire.
Canada has introduced additional economic sanctions against 14 Russian legal entities and three individuals. Tass said a statement by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, posted on the internet page of the Canadian government, says Canada also imposed a ban on import and export of goods from the territory of Crimea.
Meanwhile, The Medi-Telegraph reports Russia is planning to pass a law prohibiting foreign companies carrying Russian oil extracted from the Arctic. In response to Western sanctions against its energy giants Gazprom and Rosneft, the Russian ministry of Transport was also considering the possibility of prohibiting the transport of crude by ships built in shipyards outside Russian territory.
NBC has announced it was ending its business relationship with mogul and GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump because of comments he made about Mexican immigrants during the announcement of his campaign. The network said it would no longer air the annual Miss USA and Miss Universe pageants, which had been a joint venture between the company and Trump. Miss USA has aired on NBC since 2003, and this year’s edition was set for July 12.
Abu Dhabi daily The National reports a 30-year-old UAE woman has been sentenced to death for killing a US teacher at a local shopping mall last December and of funding Al-Qaeda in Yemen, knowing the funds would be used in terrorist acts. Alaa Bader al-Hashemi was also convicted of creating a handmade bomb she placed in front of an Egyptian-American doctor’s home that failed to detonate. The ruling cannot be appealed.
Egypt is the country that most practices female genital mutilation. CNN quotes a UN report revealing that of more than 125 million women and girls worldwide that have undergone female genital mutilation, one in four lives in Egypt. It said 92 per cent were married women aged 15 to 49 years.
When Susannah Mushatt Jones and Emma Morano were born in 1899, there was not yet world war or penicillin, and electricity was still considered a marvel. AP says the women are believed to be the last two in the world with birthdates in the 1800s. Jones, who lives in New York, currently tops a list of super-centenarians, or people who have lived past 110. Now 115, Jones spends her days in her one-bedroom apartment in a public housing facility for seniors in Brooklyn, where she has lived for more than three decades. Born in Italy, Morano has lived on her own ever since she left her husband in 1938 because he beat her. Now 115, she resides in a neat one-room apartment in Verbania, a mountain town overlooking Lago Maggiore in northwest Italy.