The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says Gasol’s sudden exit from the gas power station project has caught the eye of the National Audit Office, which is assessing the situation. In another story, it says the police are treating the death of a woman found naked in Marsalforn valley on Sunday as “suspicious” but are still trying to establish whether foul play was involved.
L-Orizzont says that DNA tests are expected to confirm the woman’s identity as the autopsy was inconclusive.
The Malta Independent says Mapfre Middlesea has acquired Allcare Insurance for €1.6 million.
In-Nazzjon says the ship Feyza Genc escaped Malta in spite of an arrest warrant over unpaid fuel bills.
International news
Reuters reports Benghazi has been plunged into darkness as clashes between pro-government forces and Islamist fighters knocked out three of five power stations serving the city. Power has been off for 16 hours a day in the port city where forces loyal to the official government based in the east have been fighting Islamist groups for 15 months in a battle that has turned parts of Benghazi into ruins.
AP says President Obama has urged Ethiopia’s leaders to curb crackdowns on press freedom and political openness. During a news conference with Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn, Obama said, “When all voices are being heard, when people know they are being included in the political process, that makes a country more successful.” The President will address the whole continent from the African Union headquarters.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post says President Obama unleashed a blistering and belittling rebuke of Republican White House hopefuls, calling their attack on his landmark nuclear deal with Iran “ridiculous if it weren’t so sad”. Standing before television cameras during his trip to Africa, Obama suggested the bellicose rhetoric from some GOP candidates was an attempt to divert attention from Donald Trump, whose popularity is confounding the Republican field. Republican US presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has said the Iran nuclear deal marches the Israelis “to the door of the oven” – a reference to the Holocaust.
President Putin has told Swiss RTS television channel that the United States stands at the origin of many problems that the European Union faces at the moment – including the problem of migration. However, he said one should not demonise the US for carrying out a policy that serves its own interests. According to the UN data, 137,000 refugees from conflict-torn countries in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia, crossed into Europe in the first six months of the year.
Daily Sabah reports Turkey and the United States have agreed on the outlines of a plan to rout the Islamic State group from a strip of Syrian territory along the Turkish border – a plan that opens the possibility of a safe haven for tens of thousands of displaced Syrians. The move further embroils Turkey, a key NATO ally, in Syria’s civil war, and also catapults it into a front-line position in the global war against IS.
Ta Nea says Greece’s government has launched complex bailout negotiations with creditors, but faced rebuke following revelations that former finance minister, Yanis Varoufakis, formed a secret committee to plan for the possible conversion of euros into drachmas “at a drop of a hat”. Finance Minister Euclid Tsakalotos said the talks would intensify today, paving the way for higher level discussions possibly by the end of the week.
The New York Times reports the presidents of China, Russia, Iran and the United States are scheduled to speak at the 70th annual UN General Assembly of world leaders in September – a rare appearance for President Putin and the first for Chinese President Xi Jinping. The UN issued its first draft list of speakers yesterday for what could be its largest ever gathering of world leaders.
Thirty-five women who allege they were sexually assaulted by US comedian Bill Cosby have united on the cover of The New York magazine cover to tell startlingly similar stories of abuse. They include models, waitresses, Playboy bunnies and women who used to work in show business. One says he raped her while she was grief stricken over the recent death of her six-year-old son.
The Daily Mirror says British police have refused to rule out the possibility that the decomposed body of a young girl found in Australia could be that of missing Madeleine McCann. Met Police have contacted their Australian counterparts after skeletal remains were found by a motorist in a suitcase by the side of a remote highway this month. Austalian police say the remains are those of a girl aged between two and four who died in 2007 and had fair hair. Maddie was three years old when she vanished from the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz in 2007, prompting speculation the remains could be hers.
Russia has blocked the import of flowers from the Netherlands. Tass reports the decision was taken after Russian agricultural controls identified the presence of “pests” on the Dutch flowers. Some observers, however, say the measure is the result of the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West for the situation in Ukraine. The ban on the import of tulips comes after Amsterdam has proposed, with other countries, an international tribunal on the crash of a Malaysian Boeing in eastern Ukraine.
According to California Chronicle, scientists at the University of California, San Diego, have developed a treatment that’s shown to shrink and even dissolve cataracts, the leading cause of human blindness worldwide. Ophthalmologists at the university say the new drug in eye-drop form may make surgery for cataracts a thing of the past.