The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:

The Times reports that the Libyan rebels were hailed in yesterday’s Friends of Libya conference. It also quotes MP Franco Debono saying that the law on recording of court cases must change or cases may be annulled.

The Malta Independent says the EU has lifted sanctions on Libyan ports, while Col Gaddafi has vowed no surrender. 

In-Nazzjon reports that Malta renewed its support to the Libyan people at yesterday’s Paris conference. It also quotes an independent study commissioned by Enemalta saying that air quality at the Delimara power station meets EU standards.

l-orizzont gives prominence to an incident yesterday where a traffic policeman was injured in an accident in Gudja. Its main story focuses on a speech by Parliamentary Secretary Jason Azzopardi 11 years ago, when he said he was proud of Gaddafi Garden in Paola.   

The overseas press

Le Monde reports that leaders and senior envoys from 60 countries have met members of Libya’s National Transitional Council in Paris and agreed to release Libya's frozen funds to help the country rebuild. Speaking after the meeting, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said there was unanimous support to continue Nato airstrikes for as long as Gaddafi remained a threat. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the top priority was to provide Libyans with medicine, fuel, food and water.

The Paris meeting followed a fiery broadcast from hiding made by Gaddafi on the Syrian-based Al-Rai TV where he encouraged his supporters to keep fighting. He warned that loyalist tribes in his main strongholds were armed and preparing for battle and encouraged them to "let Libya be engulfed by flames". It is suspected that Gaddafi, who spoke on the 42nd anniversary of the coup that brought him to power, has fled Tripoli and was hiding out in the desert town of Bani Walid, 150 km southeast of Tripoli.

 Al Arabiya TV says Gaddafi’s defiant broadcast came after rebels extended a deadline for the surrender of the fugitive leader's hometown of Sirte, which he called as the last bastion of resistance against the “occupation of Libya”. The rebels, who have been moving troops toward remaining Gaddafi strongholds across Libya, had shifted the deadline for the town of Sirte in the hope of avoiding the bloodshed that met their attack on Tripoli.

A UN review of the Israeli military raid on a Turkish-led flotilla, trying to break its blockade of Gaza, says the Israelis did use excessive force. But the report, leaked to The New York Times, concluded that Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza was legal. Nine Turkish humanitarian workers were killed by the Israeli forces.

Europe’s human rights chief has launched a scathing attack on European governments, accusing them of complicity in American crimes during the war on terror. Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe's Commissioner on Human Rights, said they cooperated in rendition and saw suspects being captured and flown to third countries to be tortured. Details including the costs and itineraries of flights organised by US private aviation firms have been revealed in a court transcript published by the UK-based Guardian newspaper.

Health authorities in Guatemala say lethal American medical experiments in the 1940’s involved nearly twice as many unsuspecting Guatemalans than previously thought. The president of the Medical Association of Guatemala has told the BBC that up to 2,500 prisoners, psychiatric patients and orphans were deliberately infected with sexually-transmitted diseases during penicillin studies. At least 83 of them are believed to have died.

August marked the first month since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq that no American forces have died, according to an Associated Press tally. Figures compiled by the news agency show that no American forces died in Iraq in August either in combat or non-combat-related situations – a significant achievement in a conflict that has claimed the lives of 4,474 American service members since it began.

Kathimerini announces that Greek police have recovered a 17th century painting by the Flemish master Pieter Paul Rubens. It had been stolen from a museum in Belgium a decade ago. Two people, both Greeks, were arrested in the operation. Neither the police nor the Culture Ministry would give further information on the raid, the painting or which Belgian museum it was stolen from, saying investigations were still ongoing into the case.

USA Today reports an alligator has attacked and severely injured a 90-year-old woman in south-west Florida. Margaret Webb was walking near her home in Copeland yesterday when the 8ft alligator lunged out of a canal and tried to drag her into the water. A trapper has been sent to the area to find the alligator. If found, the reptile would be cut open in an attempt to retrieve and reattach the leg.

Bild says a cow named Yvonne, whose escape kept a corner of Bavaria on tenterhooks, has been tracked down after three months on the run. The Gut Aiderbichl animal sanctuary, which now owns the errant bovine, has said that a farmer had called to say Yvonne wandered onto her farm. The brown dairy cow escaped from a Bavarian farm in May, then hid in forests. A few days later, she was involved in a near-collision with a police car, and local authorities labeled her a public danger.