The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times reports that the Opposition leader is still without his second pay. It also says that the police have denied that Sliema council members are off the hook.
The Malta Independent says the anti-divorce movement has criticized the lack of a social impact assessment.
In-Nazzjon says the number of operations at Mater Dei increased by 2,200 in the first quarter of this year.
l-orizzont says a man has said he will live under a tree after his illegal room in Siggiewi was demolished.
The overseas press
The Italian media leads with the announcement that the Italian air force would join the Nato bombing campaign against government forces in Libya. Corriere della Sera says Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced the change of policy following a telephone conversation with US President Obama. He said Italy would take part in raids on specific military targets to protect civilians. Italy had previously said it would not take part in Nato-led air strikes, citing its 40-year colonial rule of Libya.
Meanwhile, Al-Arabiya TV said civilians were reportedly killed in shelling as Tripoli accused NATO of killing 45 people with a raid on Gaddafi's compound in the early hours of Monday. Gaddafi was shown on state television later in the day, with his spokesman saying that he was "safe and healthy".
Al Jazeera reports that at least 11 people were killed and 14 others lay in the streets – either dead or gravely wounded – in the southern Syrian city of Daraa as thousands of soldiers backed by tanks and snipers moved in before dawn, opening fire indiscriminately on civilians and going house-to-house rounding up suspected protesters. However, the government insisted the army was invited in to rid the town of gunmen. Similar action was taken in Douma, a suburb of the capital Damascus, and in the coastal town of Jableh. Checkpoints and heavy security were also reported in central Damascus. At least 350 people have been killed since the unrest began last month, a third of them in the past three days alone.
Meanwhile, Deutsche Welle says widespread condemnation at the Syrian government action. Four European countries – Britain, France, Germany and Portugal - have urged the UN Security Council to strongly condemn the Syrian violence and urge restraint. The United States has announced it was considering "targeted sanctions" against those closest to President Bashar al-Assad in response to the violence. Some 102 Syrian writers and journalists, some of whom are living in exile, have also issued a joint declaration denouncing the crackdown. Human Rights Watch also called on the UN to set up an international inquiry into the fatal shootings and impose sanctions on officials who bear responsibility for the use of lethal force.
The Wall Street Journal quotes the US Treasury Department saying that China and the United States would hold economic talks in the US next month to discuss differences over trade and currency policies. The United States has accused China of keeping the value of its yuan currency artificially low to help exporters sell products or services abroad. China is the world's largest exporter.
Bangkok Post says Thailand was reviewing its diplomatic and econimic ties with Cambodia because of the four days of "continuous and intentional" attacks that have killed at least 12 soldiers. The protracted dispute, over 12th-century Hindu temples, has left at least 12 people dead and displaced nearly 50,000. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton has followed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in urging both sides for restraint.
In what the Taliban called a "very well-planned" prison break, some 540 of their previously jailed members have escaped from a prison in Kandahar, crawling through a 350-metre tunnel. Kabul Post quotes one Taliban official saying the tunnel was dug by fighters on the outside. The plan was five months in the making, he said. The prison typically holds drug dealers and members of the Taliban who have been captured by NATO forces in region.
WikiLeaks has published more than 700 classified military documents relating to the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba. The New York Times says the documents offered new insights into the 172 prisoners that were still locked up in Guantanamo Bay, some two years after US President Barack Obama said he would close the prison, as well some insight into former inmates. For example, there was the 89-year-old Afghan villager, suffering from senile dementia, who was transported to Cuba and interrogated before being deemed "harmless" and released. There was also the 14-year-old boy who was shipped to the prison because of "his possible knowledge of Taliban ... local leaders".
Kyiv Post says Ceremonies would take place in the Ukraine today to mark the 25th anniversary of the world’s worst nuclear accident when Chernobyl’s reactor exploded during a test of its safety systems. The disaster killed at least 30 people in its immediate aftermath and a disputed number of others died later from radiation-related illnesses. The accident forced the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Ukraine, western Russia and Belarus. There is still a 30km exclusion zone around the plant.
According to a study by the non-profit Environmental Investment Organisation (EIO), less than half of Europe's top 300 firms were publishing full and verified carbon emission data. France 24 reports that Spanish companies were best at reporting, with 92 percent providing complete information including 77 percent with the information independently verified. French and Swiss companies were worst, with only 60 percent of French firms disclosing full emissions data while only 27 percent of Swiss firms provided independently verified information.