The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press
The Times says the EU is to set up a military mission to help in evacuations from Libya and provide humanitarian assistance. It also carries the story of a woman who left her husband and sons in Libya to held her young daughters leave Libya.
The Malta Independent says MEPs Simon Busuttil and John Attard Montalto have urged the EU to trigger the migration solidarity mechanism.
MaltaToday says a top government official has taken time off to campaign ahead of the divorce referendum. It also says that Gaddafi had tried to lure Malta into backing him.
In-Nazzjon highlights comments by Eddie Gatt, a former Chief Electoral Commissioner, that the commission could not simply put a writ by the President in the drawer.
l-orizzont says therapist Dr Charles Azzopardi has been critical of the bishops pastoral letter as it affected children.
The overseas press
Confusion reigns whether Ivory Coast’s Laurent Gbagbo has surrendered or not. France 24 reports he was negotiating the terms and conditions of his departure following the assault by forces loyal to rival Alassane Ouattara and backed by UN and French helicopter air strikes. A UN internal document seen by Reuters said Gbagbo had surrendered but a UN official later said that Gbagbo had in fact not yet surrendered but had said he would if given UN protection.
Al Jazeera reports Abdul Fatah Younis, the head of the Libyan opposition's armed forces, has accused Nato of acting too "slowly", or not acting at all, to protect civilians in their fight against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. In particular, Younis was scathing in his criticism of the Nato response to events in Misurata, where residents had been under siege from pro-Gaddafi forces for the last 40 days. Younis said that Gaddafi had contaminated the drinking water, and that residents of the city did not have access to basic supplies. He said civilians, including children, were dying by the bombing and through lack of food and milk.
Al Arabiya says Younis' comments came as the rebels were forced out of the oil town of Brega by a renewed offensive by Gaddafi forces. The rebels were forced to retreat to Ajdabiya, ending a stalemate over the last five days over who controlled Brega. Forces loyal to Gaddafi were also reported to have razed a mosque in Az Zawiyah that had been used by rebels as a base, as well as a graveyard in a central square where opposition fighters are buried in that city. A former Gaddafi soldier who was held in a prison in Sirte, has told Al Jazeera in Ajdabiya prisoners there were being abused and tortured.
The BBC says there were reports of a Libyan government military attack on one of the oil fields that supplies eastern port of Tobruk. One or more of the storage tanks was set on fire at the field, in the far south-east of the country.
The news came as the shipping paper Lloyds List announced that a Greek-owned tanker had arrived in Tobruk to pick up the first consignment of oil to be exported from the rebel-held region. The tanker was capable of carrying more than $100 million worth of oil. Eventually the shipment would end up in one of European refineries best suited to handle Libyan crude. Since the revolt began two months ago, exports of Libya's main commodity collapsed, driving up the price of oil to a 30-month high
AFP reports that Abdelati al-Obeidi has been formally appointed as Libya's foreign minister, replacing Moussa Koussa, who fled the country to the United Kingdom. al-Obeidi, the envoy sent by Gaddafi on a diplomatic mission to the West, met with leaders of Greece, Turkey and Malta in the past three days for talks on ways to end the Libyan conflict.
Meanwhile, the Turkish news agency Anatolia says that Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu would hold talks with Mahmoud Jibril, the foreign affairs chief for the opposition Transitition National Council, in Qatar in the coming days.
AdnKronos reports that another boat with some 800 illegal immigrants has arrived in Lampedusa, more than 20,000 migrants arrived in the past three months since the conflicts in North Africa. The subject has prompting a threat to bring down the Italian government by a member of the Northern League, an anti-immigrant party. Davide Boni, president of Milan's wealthy Lombardy region and a League member, told left-leaning weekly L'Espresso that the League was ready to abandon the coalition.
Japan Radio quotes Tepco, the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, saying that a leak of highly radioactive water into the Pacific Ocean has been stopped. The operator said it had injected chemical agents to solidify soil near a cracked pit, from where the contaminated water had been seeping out. In another development, government sources said that a plan to cover the damaged reactor buildings with special metal sheets could not be carried out until September at the earliest due to high-level radioactivity hampering work at the site.
El Universo reports that Ecuador was expelling the US ambassador in Quito. The move follows the release on Monday by the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks of a US diplomatic cable alleging widespread corruption within the Ecuadorean police force. The US state department called the decision "unjustified" and said it deeply regretted it.
The Independent says Scotland Yard's inquiry into allegations of phone hacking by the News of the World took a dramatic turn on Tuesday as the paper's chief reporter, Neville Thurlbeck, and its former assistant editor Ian Edmondson were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to intercept mobile phone messages. It is believed the two journalists had been implicated in the long-running scandal through documents seized from Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator employed by the newspaper. Both deny any wrongdoing.
New Strait Times reports that an Islamic school teacher is in custody in Malaysia for allegedly beating to death a seven-year-old boy accused of stealing €1.58. In what news reports said was the worst known case of pupil abuse in at least 15 years, the boy suffered multiple head injuries and internal bleeding after allegedly being tied to a window for two hours, beaten and strangled. The police said the child slipped into a coma and died in a hospital from the injuries sustained at the private school. The 26-year-old teacher could be charged with murder, which carries a penalty of death by hanging on conviction.