The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times and the other newspapers lead with the critical but stable medical condition of former President Guido de Marco. In other stories it reports that criminal action may be taken over alleged Luqa council fraud.
The Malta Independent says the bus owners' association expects fares to rise once the reform start.
In-Nazzjon says that €37 million in EU funds are being invested in the ETC for worker training. It also reports that Great Lady, one of the biggest tankers to come to Malta, entered the dockyard yesterday.
l-orizzont says that €600,000 in EU funds have been lost in an EU programme aimed at encouraging more women to go out to work. It also reports that former Prime Minister Dom Mintoff turns 94 today.
The overseas press
The Washington Times reports that the Pentagon has demanded WikiLeaks not to publish more classified military documents and return tens of thousands of secret Afghan war logs. The demand, which the Defense Department has no independent power to enforce, was primarily aimed at preventing the release of some 15,000 secret documents.
Asia Times says representatives from 75 nations, including the US for the first time, were among thousands who gathered in the Japanese city of Hiroshima to honour the victims of the world's first atomic bomb attack. About 140,000 people were killed or died within months of the bomb being dropped by a US aircraft in 1945 in the final days of WWII.
Saddam Hussein's loyal deputy has said the US was "leaving Iraq to the wolves" by withdrawing troops as violence in the country begins to increase. Speaking to The Guardian, Tariq Aziz said that at first he was encouraged by President Obama, thinking he was going to correct some of the mistakes of former President Bush. He accused Mr Obama of being a hypocrite and his decision could be the death of Iraq.
The Financial Times says food prices could soar by about ten per cent amid a worldwide wheat shortage that deepened when Russia pulled the plug on grain exports. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said the nation needed to protect its own consumers and build up its reserves over the course of the year after a severe drought destroyed 20 per cent of its wheat crop. Wheat prices have already risen by 60 per cent since June as crops have failed around the world.
USA Today reports that BP has finished pumping cement down its damaged Gulf of Mexico well in an attempt to finally stem the flow of oil. The operation is a precursor to a planned "permanent kill" later this month. Heavy drilling mud was injected this week to ease the upward pressure of oil and gas and the well was provisionally capped in mid-July.
The Daily Mirror says British Prime Minister David Cameron has been accused of committing a "dangerous" gaffe when he appeared to suggest that Iran had a nuclear weapon when, according to Downing Street he was talking about "the pursuit of a nuclear weapon". Former Labour minister Chris Bryant said Mr Cameron was gaining a reputation as a "foreign policy klutz" who had his feet "firmly planted in his mouth".
Le Matin announces that singer Wyclef Jean has formally registered to stand for president of Haiti. Despite being brought up in Brooklyn and living in New York, the Haitian has been active in Haiti with his charity Yele Haiti, set up five years ago to raise awareness for his country's problems. He said the earthquake cemented his ambition to run for president.
Naomi Campbell's testimony at the trial of former Liberian president and accused war criminal Charles Taylor dominates the international press. Daily Star says the supermodel admitted she received a pouch containing"dirty looking stones" but said the so-called blood diamonds were no longer in her possession. Taylor is accused of criminal responsibility for atrocities in Sierra Leone including mutilation, rape, sexual slavery and murder.
Metro says a wife who suspected her 63-year-old husband of having an affair discovered that he was married to someone else by looking on Facebook. Lynn France typed the name of the 25-year-old woman she thought husband John was seeing into the website's search box and was shocked to see 200 pictures of their 2008 wedding. She said she was ‘numb with shock'. The discovery was the culmination of months of suspicion.
Gulf News reports a British woman was arrested in Dubai after stripping down to a bikini in a luxury shopping centre in a row over her ‘revealing' clothes. The woman was criticised by an Emirati woman for wearing a low-cut top while shopping. But she responded by telling her to ‘mind her own business' and stripping down to her bikini in front of hundreds of shoppers in Dubai Mall. Security staff detained them both and took them to a police station for questioning.