The following are the leading stories in Maltese and foreign newspapers today.
THE TIMES
The police have stepped up mobile and foot patrols for Christmas. Shop owners are also being given practical advice on security.
Malta has joined the Schengen area and passengers on the ferry to Sicily this morning will not be asked for their passport or other identification.
Queen Elizabeth has become the oldest ever monarch in the UK.
L-ORIZZONT
EU Commission auditors have noted anomalies and mistakes with regard to the paying agency for farmers.
A man, 48 of San Gwann is under observation in hospital after falling a storey in a house at Attard which is undergoing renovation.
IN-NAZZJON
Malta joins the Schengen area today. Maritime borders with Europe have disappeared. Passport checks for air passengers will disappear in March.
Lufthansa Tecknik recruits more workers.
THE MALTA INDEPENDENT
A woman was conditionally discharged by a court after attempting abortion but realising her mistake. She saved the child.
A Maltese flagged Iranian owned tanker has run aground in the Suez canal. There has been no fuel leakage.
The Press in Britain…The Belfast Telegraph gives widespread coverage to the acquittal of a County Armagh man of the murder of 29 people in the 1998 Omagh bombing, the worst atrocity in over three decades of violence in Ulster. It quotes one of the victim’s relatives saying the trial was a farce.The Guardian leads on a Belfast judge's criticism of police and the evidence they brought against Republican Sean Hoey, who was cleared of all charges relating to the attack. The Times continues that delivering his verdict nearly 10 months after the trial finished, Mr Justice Weir hit out at the forensics process, accusing police witnesses of deliberately misleading the court. The Daily Mail says victims' relatives looked on in disbelief when Hoey was acquitted but their torment was compounded by cheering from Republicans in the courtroom,. The Scotsman also reports on the acquittal of the Irish Republican man but it features a half-page sombre picture of a submerged tug boat that sank on the Clyde. Three sailors are thought to have died. The Herald says marine investigators will examine whether the tug was dragged under the Clyde after a tow line failed to release.The Record reports the skipper of the tugboat was looking forward to his first Christmas with his baby girl. The Daily Mirror reports that Kate and Gerry McCann have been inundated with hundreds of Christmas gifts for their missing daughter Madeleine. The Daily Express says mortgage firms have been accused of cynically boosting their profits instead of passing on big savings to home buyers. The Daily Telegraph leads on claims that thousands of foreign drug dealers will be allowed to stay in Britain every year despite Gordon Brown's pledge to deport them. It also reports Mr Brown's personal approval rating has hit an all-time low as a poll shows Labour would lose 100 MPs if an election was held now.The Daily Star claims prostitution could be banned under plans to tackle human trafficking.The Financial Times reports that Tata Motors of India is set to be chosen by Ford as the preferred bidder for Jaguar and Land Rover.… and elsewhereThe European edition of the International Herald Tribune, the independent daily published in Paris, reports that Malta and eight former Eastern bloc countries have torn down their borders to join the Schengen zone allowing 400 million people to travel from the east to the west without showing a passport. European Commission president Jose Manuel Barrosso hailed the addition of the nine states to 15 other nations already in the Schengen Treaty zone and many European leaders took this as a sign of the continent overcoming its Cold War division. But many people have also expressed fears of increased crime and illegal immigration. In Warsaw, Gazeta Polska quotes the head of the EU's border watchdog, Frontex, Ilkka Laitinen, warning that illegal immigration would be the price Europe has to pay for the Schengen expansion. He said once people enter the zone, whether legally or otherwise, they would be free to move across all member states. Jerusalem Post claims Israel is examining a Hamas truce proposal delivered by Egypt after at least six Palestinians were killed in a day of Israeli air and ground strikes aimed at stopping rocket salvos from Gaza. Sources said the Hamas proposal was limited to stopping the rocket fire in exchange for a halt to Israeli military operations in Gaza. There was no immediate comment from the Egyptian government.Teheran’s pro-government broadsheet Abrar reported that police and security forces have killed four members of a Sunni militant group in a shootout and detained 15 other suspects. They were part of Jundallah, or God's Brigade, which is believed by some to have links to al-Qaida.Baghdad’s Al Zaman leads with the US soldiers’ discovery of mass graves north of Baghdad next to a torture centre where chains were attached to blood-spattered walls and a metal bed frame was still connected to an electrical shock system. The torture centre lies in an area where al-Qaida insurgents are very active. Folha de S. Paolo reports that thieves broke into the Sao Paulo Museum of Art and made off with paintings by Pablo Picasso and Candido Portinari in a brazen heist Thursday morning that lasted just three minutes as recorded by security cameras. They stole Picasso's "Portrait of Suzanne Bloch," which he painted in 1904 during his Blue Period, and "O Lavrador de Cafe" by Portinari, a major Brazilian artist. Local media reports estimated the value of the work at around US$100 million. Avian Science, the European Ornthologists’ Union publication, says dozens of common bird species have declined across Europe over the past 25 years, with some pushed to the brink of extinction, a report warns. The publication quotes the UK’s Royal Society for the Protection of Birds saying it found 56 of the 124 widespread land-based European birds studied had seen numbers dropping since 1980.The American medical magazine More reports that seven commonly-held beliefs, including that eight glasses of water a day lead to good health, have been revealed as "medical myths" by US researchers. They trawled through data supporting each claim and found they were unproven, untrue or simply illusions. The beliefs include that we only use 10 per cent of our brains, shaving legs causes hair to grow back thicker and that reading in dim light damages eyesight.