The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says that according to an exercise it undertook, Air Malta has almost twice as many employees per aircraft as some comparable airlines. In another story, it says that more than half the vehicles, mostly commercial, that were pulled to the side of the road in the past year for a technical inspection failed the roadworthiness test.
The Malta Independent says PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami said that, to his knowledge, Marco Gaffarena did not make any donations to his party. But Mr Gaffarena told the newspaper Beppe would soon remember and he had documents to back up his claim.
L-Orizzont says Joe and Mark Gaffarena have taken affidavits to say that former minister Joe Cassar had sent them to meet Dr Busuttil, then deputy leader at the PN headquarters and that the PN wanted information related to the Daewoo case.
In-Nazzjon says that former police commissioners Peter Paul Zammit and Ray Zammit are still enjoying their commissioner salary and allowances.
International news
The New York Times reports the United Nations is hoping to raise between $3.5 and $5 trillion annually for the next 15 years to fund a bold new anti-poverty agenda billed as a “to-do list” for the world. The UN’s 193 member-states agreed on a draft plan for the sustainable development goals at the weekend and world leaders are set to endorse them at a summit in New York next month. The plan has 17 goals and 169 targets to end poverty, ensure healthy lives, promote education and combat climate change.
Meanwhile, the European Union has welcomed Obama’s plan against climate change. Le Soir says that in a tweet, the EU commissioner Miguel Arias Canete stressed that the project is a “positive step towards a genuine commitment by the United States to cut CO2emissions”.
Magyar Hirlap says Hungarian soldiers have started building a fence on the border with Serbia, an effort to stop the rising flow of migrants trying to enter the European Union. On the outskirts of the southern village of Asotthalom, soldiers used heavy machinery to drive metal rods into the ground, the first steps in the construction of the 13ft high fence which the government wants completed by August 31 along the 109-mile border. More than 100,000 migrants have reached Hungary on routes across the Balkans so far in 2015, compared with fewer than 43,000 asylum seekers last year and 18,900 in 2013.
Sky News quotes British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond insisting his government had a grip on the migrant crisis at Calais. Speaking after chairing a meeting of the government's emergency Cobra committee, he promised 100 security guards will be sent to the trouble spot. The news comes as figures suggest that as many as 70 per cent of migrants in Calais may be making it in to Britain. In the UK, the government has announced new measures designed to put off would-be asylum seekers, including threatening landlords who fail to evict migrants who do not have the right to live in Britain with a prison sentence of up to five years.
AFP reports the leader of a Jewish extremist group has been arrested after a Palestinian baby died in a West Bank fire-bombing. The domestic intelligence service named him as 20-year-old Meir Ettinger. He was arrested in Safed in northern Israel “because of his activities in a Jewish extremist organisation”. Meanwhile, Israeli police investigated online threats against Israel’s president for condemning “Jewish terrorism”.
According to El Mundo Deportivo, the leader of Spain’s wealthy Catalonia region has signed a decree calling early parliamentary elections for September. The elections have been portrayed as a proxy vote on independence. However, deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said the vote can only be about choosing a new Catalan parliament, under the constitution.
Several London nationals report that Britain’s independent police watchdog agency has said it would investigate an allegation that the police in Wiltshire had dropped a criminal investigation in the 1990s when the subject threatened to go public with accusations that the former Conservative Prime Minister Edward Heath had sexually abused children. The Daily Mirror says the claim of a cover-up came from a retired senior police officer.
The Financial Times reports a city trader has been sentenced to 14 years in jail for fixing the rates of interest at which banks lend to each other – the so-called Libor rate. Tom Hayes had been accused of eight counts of conspiracy to defraud between 2006 and 2010 for setting the rate on which trillions of dollars of financial deals are based. The Briton worked in Japan for a Swiss and an American bank where he was accused of manipulating the British financial markets.
Beijing Times says a newborn baby girl was abandoned in a Beijing public toilet and fell head-first down the pipe after her mother apparently gave birth in the facility. Members of the public were alerted by the baby’s cries and a police officer reached down the pipe to extract the girl. She was taken to a hospital but did not appear to have suffered any physical disabilities
It was labelled as “Liquor beneficial to health” but now the two Chinese distilleries that produce it are under fire for adding Viagra to drink. El Mundo says the authorities in Guangxi province seized 1,124 litres of pure alcohol and a lot of white powder labeled as “sildenafil”, commonly known as Viagra. The powder was added to three of the varieties of liquor products.
Taipei Times reports dozens of people, including men, wearing bras have staged a protest in Hong Kong after a woman was sentenced to three-and-a-half months in prison for “assaulting” a police officer with her breast. Ng Lai-ying, 30, was sentenced for “assaulting a police officer” during a chaotic protest against mainland Chinese cross-border traders last March. The clerk was found guilty of using her chest to bump against the arm of Hong Kong Police Force Chief Inspector Chan Ka-po. The South China Morning Post had reported Ng Lai-ying had previously told the court that she yelled “indecent assault” out of fear immediately after Chan’s hand landed on her left breast when he failed to grab the strap of her bag.