The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times quotes the Health Ministry saying the IVF bill may need some technical clarifications. It also says that former Labour minister Joe Grima is refusing to apologise for a facebook attack he made on a priest.
The Malta Independent says Gozitans had a better Santa Marija than last year.
l-orizzont reports how sludge was dumped into a bathing area in Qawra yesterday after being dredged from a slipway.
In-Nazzjon reports that the Labour Party has not condemned Joe Grima for his attacks on a priest.
The overseas press
CBS reports President Obama has declared a state of emergency in Louisiana as tropical storm Isaac gathered strength and threatened New Orleans – exactly seven years after the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina. Mississippi, Alabama and Florida have also declared emergencies, bracing for heavy rains, battering winds and possible flooding. The storm has already generated winds of more than 100kph and could dump as much as 46 cm of rain along the coast.
Meanwhile, NBC News says the US Republican Party formally opened its national convention in Tampa to formally nominate Presidential candidate Mitt Romney. However, it postponed most of the first day proceedings as tropical storm Isaac skirted the coastline of Florida.
Politicians and agricultural experts attending the annual World Water Week conference in Stockholm have been told the amount of food that’s wasted across the globe must be reduced as part of the response to rising food prices. The Nation quotes FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva urging coordinated action by the world’s richest countries, noting that one third of food production was lost due to poor storage in developing countries, or being thrown away in rich countries.
The UN says basic public services in Gaza must be improved urgently if the Palestinian enclave was to remain “liveable”. Al Ayyam says the UN report points to lack of clean water as the greatest challenge in Gaza but warns that the health, power and education infrastructure is falling behind the needs of a rapidly-growing population.
Deutsche Welle report the French and German finance ministers have announced closer cooperation in combating the eurozone's sovereign debt difficulties. After a meeting in Berlin, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble and his French counterpart Pierre Moscovici said that a new working group would be set up to discuss such issues as a possible banking union, the strengthening of the fiscal and currency union and what to do with Greece.
According to Kathimerini, Greece is to sell one of its three state jets and make the other two available to the national air force in order to cut defence costs and balance the state budget. In a statement, the Greek government said it would keep a US-made Gulfstream for state trips, but this too would occasionally be available to the air force.
France 24 reports President Francois Hollande ratcheted up the diplomatic pressure on the already isolated Assad regime, calling on the Syrian opposition to form a provisional government and saying France would recognise it once it was formed. The announcement from Hollande – believed to be the first of its kind – also appeared to be an attempt to jolt Syria's deeply fragmented opposition into unity.
Meanwhile, al bawaba says an amateur video posted on the internet showed a Syrian government helicopter catching fire and crashing over a Damascus suburb. Syrian state TV confirmed that a military helicopter was gunned down but gave no further details. Rebel forces said they shot down the helicopter to avenge the massacre by regime forces in Darayya, where more than 300 people were killed.
Kabul Post reports at least 30 civilians have been killed across Afghanistan. Among them were 17 civilians who were reportedly beheaded by Taliban insurgents for holding a party. The Afghans, two of them women, were killed in Helmand province, where they were attending a party that featured music and mixed-gender dancing, provincial officials said. The radical Taliban movement, which enforced an extreme version of Islamic law during its 1996-2001 rule, prohibits such behaviour.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post quotes the US military saying it was disciplining nine soldiers over two incidents that provoked outrage in Afghanistan early this year – one involving a video depicting Marines urinating on corpses and another over burned copies of the Qur’an. Observers said the administrative punishments fell short of criminal prosecution and it was unclear whether they would satisfy Afghan demands for justice.
Monterey County Herald says more than 70 earthquakes and hundreds of temblors shook Southern California on Sunday and Monday, reaching a 5.5 magnitude range – the strongest the region has seen in three decades. The moderate earthquakes shattered windows and knocked trailer homes off their foundations, putting people on edge as they continue to feel jolts that scientists said could last for days.
Moscow Times says one person died and 10 others have been hospitalised in Russia after an anthrax outbreak spread to humans by cattle. Officials have declared a state of emergency in the village of Druzhba. Several infected cattle have been killed and hundreds more vaccinated in the area.
Aviation Week & Space Technology reports that NASA beamed the first human voice ever heard from another planet back to Earth yesterday, predicting a manned mission to Mars in a message transmitted from the surface of the Red Planet. In the audio message, radioed to the Mars rover and then broadcast back to Earth by the Curiosity rover, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said a manned mission to Mars could happen "in the not too distant future."
Huffington Post reports the Roman Catholic archbishop-elect of San Francisco has apologised for his weekend arrest on suspicion of drunken driving. The Rev. Salvatore Cordileone said in a statement he was driving home from a dinner with friends in San Diego with his mother when he was pulled over at a checkpoint. He said a sobriety test showed his blood alcohol level to be above the legal limit. He says he is ashamed of what he termed an "error in judgment" and plans to pay his debt to society. Cordileone currently serves as bishop of Oakland and is scheduled to be installed as San Francisco archbishop on October 4 – five days before his first court date.