The following are the top stores in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports that eight VAT Department employees were arrested yesterday afternoon in a police raid on the VAT Department offices as part of a fraud investigation. It also reports how a man was found dead in an industrial furnace in St Paul’s Bay.
The Malta Independent also leads with the VAT Department Investigation and the grim discovery in St Paul’s Bay. It also previews George Abela’s inauguration today.
l-orizzont says the absolute majority of port workers backed the GWU in a poll held yesterday.
In-Nazzjon also previews today’s presidential inauguration, its heading being Thank you Eddie, Welcome, George.
The Press in Britain
The Times refers to President Barack Obama's failure to get agreement from European countries to send more troops to Afghanistan.
The Guardian says the US President will today announce series of radical moves to curb nuclear weapons, improve security, close the Guantanamo Bay prison and tackle global warming.
The Herald reports Royal Bank of Scotland shareholders overwhelmingly voted down a remuneration report after former chief Sir Fred Goodwin refused to hand back any of his £703,000-a-year pension.
The Daily Express says Britain's bailed-out banks are charging taxpayers interest rates as high as 21 per cent for some personal loans.
And the Financial Times claims borrowers are being given as little as one month's notice to pay off mortgages as banks take steps to cope with the housing downturn.
The Daily Telegraph reports employers fear they will not be able to cope if parents are given the right to demand flexible working hours.
The Daily Mirror quotes Madonna as saying she will fight a judge's ruling stopping her adopting orphaned Malawi girl Mercy James.
The Sun claims the 50-year-old pop star screamed ''This is the worst day of my life".
The Daily Star says fans of the late reality TV star Jade Goody have camped out overnight for today's funeral.
The Independent says the founders of Twitter, the microblogging service that has become a media sensation, have opened talks with Google about a tie-up.
The Scotsman reveals the final words of a pilot of the helicopter that crashed into the sea confirming how he and his colleagues lost control suddenly.
And elsewhere…
USA Today reports that an Asian gunman in his twenties, who opened fire on an American citizenship class, killed up to 14 people before turning the gun on himself.
The International Herald Tribune says that President Barack Obama has held talks with the leaders of France and Germany ahead of today’s NATO's 60th anniversary summit. He has tried to assuage German concerns that Washington will use the summit to press Berlin for more troops to secure Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, Le Monde says that the police in France have fired tear gas at rock-hurling protesters in the first real confrontation after hours of mostly small, scattered and peaceful rallies. About 300 people have been arrested. Some 15,000 German police - including 31 riot squads - and 9,000 French police are on call for the summit.
Kyiv Post says some 20,000 protestors rallied in the Ukrainian capital demanding the resignation of the "Orange Revolution" pro-Western government, led by Julia Tymoshenko, and President Viktor Yushchenko over their handling of the economic crisis. Their power struggle has led to political turmoil in the former Soviet republic.
L’Osservatore Romano reports that the Vatican was "astonished" at a Belgian parliament protest against the Pope's condom remarks. The Belgian resolution, the first time a country has lodged an official protest against the Vatican, calls the pontiff's comments “unacceptable” and ordered the government to "react strongly against any state or organization that in the future brings into doubt the benefit of using condoms to prevent transmission of the AIDS virus".
La Tribune de Geneve says the UN has appointed Richard Goldstone, a Jewish judge from South Africa, to head a high-level mission to investigate alleged war crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip.
Al-Quds al-Arabi reports that Sudan has announced plans to hold parliamentary and presidential elections next February. The vote will be the first democratic national election staged in the African country in more than 20 years.
Sydney Morning Herald says Australia has adopted the UN declaration of indigenous rights, reversing its earlier opposition in what the government said was an effort to “reset” relations between whites and Aborigines.
Pakistan Times reports that an investigation has been ordered into a video showing a man flogging a screaming woman in the country’s north-west where the government recently agreed to introduce Islamic law to end a rebellion by Taliban militants.
The New York Post says a man proposing to his girlfriend on the pedestrian walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge was so excited he dropped the diamond engagement ring and was lucky it did not end up in the river. He valiantly shimmied down to the lower span, where car traffic travels, and found the ring – slightly bent but with the diamonds still in place. Police stopped the traffic on the bridge to let him retrieve it.