The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times said a million people cheered during the beatification of Pope John Paul II yesterday.
The Malta Independent carries comments by the head of the Divorce Movement that there should be separation between Church and State.
In-Nazzjon reports comments by the Prime Minister that the biggest gain for Malta through EU membership was its participation in decision-making.
l-orizzont gives prominence to Joseph Muscat’s comment that divorce is a civil right.
The overseas press
The Independent leads with Britain’s expulsion of the Libyan ambassador in London after angry crowds attacked diplomatic offices in Tripoli on Sunday – a day after Nato bombed Muammar Gaddafi's family compound in an attack that killed the leader's second-youngest son, his daughter-in-law and three grandchildren. The Italian and the American embassies were targeted and the British embassy was completely burnt out. The vandalized embassies were empty and nobody was injured. The United Nations said offices were ransacked, prompting the organization to pull its international staff out of the capital.
The Libyan state TV Al Libiya yesterday afternoon showed two bodies wrapped in flags, presumably those of Saif and his wife. Corriere della Sera said Saif's death was confirmed by Archbishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, Apostolic Nuncio in Tripoli. He said, "They took us to see the corpses: one of these, we were told, was the son of Gaddafi, but the body was too disfigured for recognition. With the heads of the various churches we said a prayer." Some international intelligence circles have advanced the idea the announcement of Said’s death was a trick by the Libyan regime to attract sympathy and support and to gather the people around Gaddafi.
The International Herald Tribune says Russia has accused Nato of exceeding its UN mandate of protecting Libyan civilians with the strike. However, alliance officials and allied leaders emphatically denied they were hunting Gaddafi in order to break a stalemate in the war. Nato said the Libyan government's announcement remained unconfirmed.
Ansa reports that 1.5 million faithful watched the beatification ceremony of John Paul II in Rome, whom Pope Benedict called “God’s giant”. After the ceremony Benedict was the first to pray before John Paul's coffin at the Altar of Confession in St Peter's, to where the coffin has been transferred to give Catholic pilgrims an opportunity for prayer and veneration following the beatification. It will be moved to the Chapel of St Sebastian near Michelangelo's famous after the Basilica is closed today. John Paul's feast day will be October 22, the anniversary of the day in 1978 when his pontificate was inaugurated
Wall Street Journal says that around Europe, May Day activities were generally more subdued than in years past. In France, the far-right National Front Party staged its traditional "Joan of Arc" march. Austria's Social Democratic Chancellor used a May Day rally in Vienna to denounce the banking sector before a crowd of about 100,000 people. In Turin, some protesters accused unions of "betraying" workers by agreeing to stricter work conditions introduced by carmaker Fiat as part of its cost-cutting strategy. In Greece, several thousand people took to the streets to protest the government's deep spending cuts. In Portugal, tens of thousands also marched protesting austerity measures expected to be imposed under the terms of a European Union and International Monetary Fund bailout plan. Although some violence was reported, May Day demonstrations in Germany were relatively peaceful. Police in Berlin did break up one rally with water canon after stones and bottles were thrown at businesses.
Börzen Zeitung reports that government ministers in Germany have pledged to protect the pay of German workers on the day that the country allowed in people from eight former Communist countries that are now part of the European Union. The German Labour Minister said there would be checks to ensure that agreed minimum wage levels were paid.
Al Ahram says the Egyptian Foreign Minister Nabil Al-Arabi has called on the United States to support the declaration of an independent Palestinian state. He aid the Americans should view the recent reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas as a positive development. Meanwhile, Israel has suspended tax transfers to the Palestinian Authority after Fatah and Hamas reached the deal to form a unity government.
Le Monde says an undersea search has located the flight data recorder of Air France jet that crashed off the coast of Brażil in 2009. Robots capable of operating four kilometers below the ocean surface were used to find the recorder. Investigators hope the black box would help determine what caused the crash which killed all 228 people on board. The bulk of the wreckage was only recently discovered in a deep-sea search.
The death has been announced of British Boxing Legend Henry Cooper, aged 76. The Daily Mirror says Sir Henry was known for his particularly effective left hook, “Enry's Ammer”, and for his knockdown of Cassius Clay, later known as Muhammad Ali, in 1963. Ali won the non-title bout at Wembley and triumphed when the pair met again three years later. But Sir Henry later became the British, Commonwealth and European heavyweight champion. And although he never won a world title belt, he was hugely popular with the British public and in 2000 he became the first ever boxer to be knighted.