The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press today. All four dailies lead with yesterday’s election of Joseph Muscat as the new Malta Labour Party leader to succeed Dr Alfred Sant who resigned after Labour’s third consecutive general election defeat.
The Times publishes pictures of a jubilant Dr Muscat and his wife Michelle after he was declared leader and pledged a party shake-up. He polled 574 or 66.36 of the votes while Dr Abela got 291 in the run-off.
The Malta Independent shows Dr Muscat being carried shoulder-high by MLP supporters soon after being elected leader and quotes him as saying that his election marked a new political season.
l-orizzont also features the new Labour leader’s wife giving him a victory hug and says that he asked all those who were celebrating to give a round of applause to Dr Abela.
In-Nazzjon says that Dr Muscat doest not have the confidence of a third of a party delegates. In a second story, the paper reports that the IMF has praised Malta’s economic growth.
The Press in Britain...
The Scotsman reveals Scottish Labour MPs have given a stark warning to British prime Minister Gordon Brown that the country will become independent within a few years unless the party wakes up to the threat of a Conservative government at Westminster.
The Times carries a Church of England report which states that the policies of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown have helped to generate a spiritual, civic and economic crisis in Britain.
The Daily Telegraph also refers to the same report saying the Church of England claims Christianity is being discriminated against by the Government in favour of Islam and other minority faiths.
The Daily Express says it has been gagged by Downing Street in an attempt to silence its readers over fuel tax.
The Daily Mail reports that binmen have issued a warning to council taxpayers - if they cannot pull your wheelie bin using just two fingers, it is too heavy and will not be emptied.
The Independent focuses on the trial in the US of Neil Entwistle, accused of killing his wife and nine-month-old daughter.
The Daily Mirror says a vow to crack down on teenage drinkers was exposed as a sham.
And elsewhere...
EU Observer says European Union governments have agreed to a compromise proposal to reform the bloc's energy sector. Big energy companies are to be allowed to hold on to their power grids, but production activities are to be clearly separated from retail distribution operations.
The Financial Times leads with the news that crude oil prices staged their biggest one-day advance to hit a record of more than $139 a barrel. Officials and ministers from the Group of Eight key industrialised nations (G8), as well as China, India and South Korea, are meeting for two days in the Japanese northern city of Aomori, to plot a strategy to deal with volatility in oil, gas and coal markets.
The International Herald Tribune reports the United Nations and European Union have called on the Zimbabwean government of President Robert Mugabe to rescind its order for all non-governmental organisations to suspend their work ahead of the June 27 election. The UN estimates that at least 2 million people face a greater risk of starvation, due to the NGO ban. Zimbabwe's government has accused NGOs of interfering in the country's politics.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post says the United States has accused the Zimbabwean government of using food as a weapon ahead of a run-off presidential election. The US ambassador in Harare said if potential voters wanted food aid, they had to surrender voting cards which revealed which party they supported. Millions of Zimbabweans rely on food aid, due to huge rates of inflation and a collapse in domestic food production.
El Mundo says an emergency plan to pipe water to Barcelona has been scrapped after recent heavy rains eased the severe drought that was affecting the city. Deputy premier Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega said the decision to halt the €169m pipeline came after official reports confirmed reservoir levels in Barcelona have risen above emergency levels.
Kurrier says that a court in Austria has extends Josef Fritzl’s pre-trial detention by two months. The Austrian man is accused of fathering seven children with the daughter he held captive for 24 years. Fritzl confessed to locking up his daughter Elisabeth and repeatedly raping her.
The Age says a man has been questioned by police over a fire that destroyed the headquarters of British celebrity chef Jamie Oliver's Australian eatery in downtown Melbourne. Oliver's nearby restaurant was not damaged and continues to trade.
Sydney Morning Herald says photographs of nude teenagers that prompted police to close a gallery exhibit in Australia's biggest city and launch an obscenity investigation were cleared by censors as non-pornographic. The ruling on leading Australian photographer Bill Henson's portraits came two weeks after police shut his latest exhibition in Sydney and confiscated dozens of photographs of naked adolescent boys and girls to investigate whether they violated obscenity laws.
The New York Post says a veteran crane inspector has been arrested on charges of taking thousands in dollars of bribes and falsifying reports.
Havana’s Trabajadores reports the Cuban government has authorised sex-change operations and will offer them free to qualifying citizens.
Football: Most of Europe’s newspapers devote special reports into the last minute preparations by the coaches of the teams that are taking part in the 2008 European Championship, which get underway later this today. For the next three weeks, Europe's final 16 teams will battle it out to claim the prize of continental champion. The event is being co-hosted by Switzerland and Austria. Switzerland is opening the tournament in Basel with their match against the Czech Republic.