The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports how a Maltese aviation photographer escaped an air crash fireball in the UK on Saturday when he took a wrong turn while driving to an airshow near Brighton. It also says the Environment Impact Assessment exemption for building development on hospital sites may breach European law.
Malta Today reports that planning permits can be granted without land owner's consent.
The Malta Independent says most AUM students will be Muslim and the social impact assessment has recommended a mosque in Zonqor.
In-Nazzjon says an internal report shows the government's failure in the health sector. The document - the Mater Dei Hospital Activity Report - was revealed at a press conference yesterday.
l-orizzont leads with criticism by a priest of recent decisions giving new titles to churches. This, he said, showed an antiquated church which many believed had been consigned to history.
The overseas press
EU Observer reports the European Commission has opened 32 investigations against 18 of the 28 EU member states for alleged violations of European laws on asylum. Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, and Sweden are among EU members that have allegedly violated a number of EU-level asylum rules.
According to Euronews, senior officials of the Balkan countries that are not part of the European Union will meet tomorrow in Vienna to discuss the rush of migrants crossing their territory. Frontex records show more than 100,000 migrants entered the EU via the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina between January and July 2015 – more than 10 times the number for the same period in 2014.
Italy will keep on saving lives in the Mediterranean even if it costs the government in terms of electoral support, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi vowed on his return to political action after the summer break. Ansa says Renzi also promised to press on with a reform programme which would make Italy easier to govern. He also pledged to keep on cutting taxes over the next three years.
France 24 reports a six-month-old baby is among four people killed after a drunken gunman opened fire at a Roma camp in French northern town of Roye. Police say three of the victims were all members of the same family. The other was a police officer, whose colleague was also hurt, after they were called to the Roma camp.
CNN says a US judge has temporarily blocked the state of Mississippi from carrying out executions. Judge Henry T Wingate issued a temporary restraining order in a case where three inmates have sued because they say there’s no guarantee that Mississippi can mix a safe and effective anaesthetic to knock out prisoners, and that prisoners could remain conscious during execution. The Mississippi Department of Corrections confirmed the state will appeal.
French President François Hollande said that the “neutralisation” of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad was a pre-condition to resolving the crisis in the war-torn country. AFP reports he laid out three conditions for resolving the crisis: the “neutralisation” of Assad, “solid guarantees to all the moderate opposition forces and the bringing together of all stakeholders in the conflict. Syria's foreign ministry reacted angrily to Hollande's speech, saying it “constituted a flagrant intrusion in internal affairs and shows that France contributes to the spilling of Syrian blood”.
Le Parisien quotes the prosecutor opening a terrorism investigation into the attack on a high-speed train in France last week, saying minutes before he slung an assault rifle across his chest and walked through a high-speed train, the Moroccan suspect in the foiled attack watched a jihadi video on his cellphone. François Molins said the actions by Ayoub El-Khazzani on the Amsterdam-to-Paris train Friday night and information from other European authorities on his travels and apparent links to radical Islam prompted the investigation.
Reuters reports the Guatemalan Supreme Court has approved a request to impeach President Otto Perez over his suspected involvement in a racket to siphon customs revenue from the government, and passed the matter to Congress for approval. Guatemala’s attorney general and a United Nations-backed anti-corruption body sought to impeach Perez on Friday after months of investigation into the racket. Perez has angrily dismissed the allegations.
Radio Nigeria announces a 12-year-old child bomber killed six people and wounded tens of others outside a bus station in north-eastern Nigeria. Witnesses reported seeing a “young girl” approaching the station in the Yobe state capital Damaturu and refusing to be searched by security guards at the gate before blowing herself up.
The New York Times reports Jeffrey Hurant, 50, the CEO of Rentboy.com and six others were arraigned in Brooklyn federal court after their arrest yesterday morning – each charged with “promoting prostitution”. Founded in 1997, Rentboy.com is a male escort advertising site that charges subscribers a “minimum monthly fee of $59.95 and up to several hundred dollars to advertise sexual services”. Rentboy's Twitter account describes the company as “The Original & World's Largest Male Escort Site” and has some 11,000 followers.