The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times reports how Nato, the prime minister and the Libyan ambassador all denied a Torca claim that a Libyan missile had been fired at Malta. The newspaper also carries a plea from the widow of cyclist Cliff Micallef for roads to be made safer. Cliff Micallef was killed while cycling two years ago.
The Malta Independent carries comments by Cyrus Engerer that it was the PN that had changed and he held firm to his principles. It also reports that parliament will take the final votes on divorce today.
l-orizzont asks if higher power tariffs are on the way.
In-Nazzjon leads with the strong rebuttals of yesterday’s story on It-Torca.
The overseas press
The Financial Times reports that police around Europe were on increased alert against far-right extremism as 32-year-old Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian man accused of killing 93 people in Norway’s bomb and shooting attack, prepared to face charges in an Oslo court later today. Across Europe, police authorities increased scrutiny of potential far-right threats while Muslim groups in the UK raised security levels amid fear of anti-Islamic activity. Europol, the European police agency based in The Hague, said it was setting up a task force to help investigate non-Islamist threats in Scandinavian countries.
Verdens Gang says memorial services have been held across Norway, including at the main Lutheran cathedral in Oslo, to remember the nearly victims of Friday’s shootings and bomb attacks. Norway's King Harald V and his wife Queen Sonja attended the main service, along with political leaders led by the Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg who said the death of each and every person was a tragedy.
According to Aftenposten, the police said Breivik told them he had planned and carried out the attacks alone. The lawyer representing Breivik said he admitted carrying out both attacks. Sky News quoted the chief surgeon at a hospital treating victims of the camp attack saying the killer used special "dum-dum" bullets, designed to disintegrate inside the body and cause maximum damage.
The New York hotel maid who accused former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn of attempted rape has spoken for the first time since the claims emerged. In an interview to Newsweek magazine and US television channel ABC, Nafissatou Diallo, 32, accused Mr Strauss-Kahn of acting like a “crazy man” and attacking her when she entered his room and forced her to carry out a sex act. She said she wanted Strauss-Kahn, who has strenuously denied all the charges against him, to go to jail.
Deutsche Well quotes Germany's Foreign Ministry saying it would offer Libya's National Transitional Council up to €100 million in loans for civil and humanitarian purposes. The loans could be paid back with Gaddafi's frozen assets once the UN Security Council releases them to a new Libyan government. Meanwhile NATO warplanes hit a string of military targets in Tripoli on Sunday. The NATO airstrikes were originally started to prevent the fall of rebel-held cities like Misrata and Benghazi, but they have thus far failed to bring down Gaddafi's regime. Gaddafi said in an audio message broadcast by state television late on Saturday that the unrest was part of a "colonial plot."
US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner has said he is confident the White House and Congress will be able to agree a deal to reduce the US debt. He said it was "unthinkable" the US would not meet its obligations on time. Geithner's comments to CNN come after talks between President Barack Obama and Congressional leaders on Saturday failed to make a breakthrough. The US risks default on its $14.3 trillion €9.94 trillion) debt without a deal to raise the borrowing limit before August 2.
El Pais reports that thousands of protesters, angry about Spain's economic woes once again filled Madrid's Piazza del Sol after many spent weeks marching hundreds of kilometers from far-flung cities across Spain. Seven columns of marchers converged on the city late on Saturday and were joined by more who took public transport into the capital. Two years of recession have left Spain with 21 per cent unemployment and a swollen deficit. Its government is trying to convince investors it could handle its debt and would not need financial help like Greece, Ireland and Portugal.
El Universal says Mexican police have arrested some 1,000 people in a crackdown on human trafficking and sexual exploitation in Ciudad Juarez. Officials said they also rescued 20 underage women in the raids in which dozens of bars and hotels in the city centre were searched for missing people.
Mohamed bin Hammam has vowed to overturn his bribery conviction and life ban from football, calling the decision an act of "revenge" by FIFA and its president Sepp Blatter. Bin Hammam told the BBC that ''the ban for life shows how much these people are angry, how much they are full of revenge". FIFA imposed the ban after finding the suspended Asian Football Confederation president guilty of bribery allegations in his campaign to unseat Blatter. He denies the allegations, and plans to clear his name by launching several appeals, including at the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Switzerland.