The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times says a movement has been formed to oppose divorce.
The Malta Independent says Renault espionage payoff money may have passed through Malta, according to a French newspaper. The alleged industrial espionage at the carmaker is under investigation.
MaltaToday says the crisis at Mater Dei Hospital is down to a lack of resources, not flu.
In-Nazzjon leads with the arraignment of Darren Debono and evidence given on security procedures at HSBC Qormi
l-orizzont focuses on the situation at Pitkali Crates and claims irregularities by the government.
The overseas press
The Brisbane Courier Mail reports floodwaters continue to menace Australia’s third largest city, Brisbane, forcing thousands of people to flee their homes. The paper quoted predictions that 40,000 properties would be affected and more than 6,500 residents were expected to take refuge in three evacuation centres. Local media said the peak for Brisbane could be in the early hours of today – higher than the 5.45 metres reached in the devastating 1974 floods.
The Queensland Times says the Australian town of Ipswich was on the brink of disaster, with shops flooded up to their awnings. Thousands of people have fled to evacuation centres as the water was rising by one metre an hour. In the most deadly incident so far, a tsunami-like wall of water has hit Toowoomba, just west of Brisbane, leaving at least 10 people dead, 78 missing and many more seeking the safety of roofs as they wait to be rescued. Queensland's flooding has caused billions of dollars worth of damage and affected 200,000 people.
As Portugal prepares to auction off €1.25 billion of debt, Diario Económico quotes Prime Minister José Sócrates trying to quash speculation that his country may be next in line for an EU-IMF economic bailout. He said the 2010 budget deficit was below the 7.3 per cent target and he aimed to slash that to 4.6 percent this year. Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos has complained that Europe did not seem to be doing its job to maintain the stability of the euro.
Assabah reports more violence in Tunisia as the police and the military try to contain escalating unrest over unemployment and living conditions. Hundreds of youths ransacked shops and set fire to a bank in the capital Tunis. The authorities have reported 21 people have been killed but human rights groups claimed the figure is double that of the official toll.
Al Ahram reports that an off-duty policeman opened fire on a train in Egypt, killing a 71-year-old Christian man and wounding five other, including the wife of the dead man. It was unclear whether the attack was sectarian. At least four of the wounded were Coptic Christians. Hundreds of Christians later clashed with police outside the hospital where the wounded were taken. Police fired teargas to disperse them.
Los Angeles Times says a judge has ruled that Michael Jackson’s personal doctor must go on trial over the singer’s death in 2009. Dr Conrad Murray is accused of involuntary manslaughter. He has pleaded not guilty.
The Wall Street Journal says the US presidential commission investigating last year’s oil spill disaster in the Golf of Mexico has called for sweeping changes in the way the oil industry is regulated. In its final report, the panel called for an independent safety agency to be set up in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the deep-water Horizon platform.
Arizona Herald quotes doctors treating the US Congresswoman Gabrielle Gifford saying she was now breathing on her own although she remained critically ill. She was shot in the head in Tuscon, Arizona, on Saturday in a shooting spree that killed six people and wounded 13. The father of the nine-year-old girl killed in the fatal gun attack has called for the gunman's execution.
The New York Times reports former US President Bill Clinton is frustrated at the slow pace of reconstruction in Haiti, a year after the earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people. Speaking from his office at the UN, the organisation’s special envoy to Haiti, said what was needed most urgently was cash to buy the medical supplies, water and other essentials needed to sustain the Haitian people during this early phase of the recovery.