The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Sunday Times carries an interview with the father of the young girl who drowned in a bath on Friday. He is quoted as saying that he wished to have died instead of his daughter. In another story, Prof Stephen Brincat, former head of the Oncology Department, says patients died of chemo toxicity in Gozo.
The Malta Independent on Sunday quotes Franco Debono saying he would consider all options if tomorrow’s meeting with the PN executive committee goes nowhere. It also says the draft cohabitation bill has ruffled feathers, raises eyebrows.
MaltaToday says Lawrence Gonzi has insisted that the economy is on the right track. It also quotes experts saying land reclamation would cost hundreds of millions
It-Torca reports that Transport Malta has renewed licences even when fines remained unpaid.
Il-Mument says the PN is the party of the self-employed.
KullHadd claims that the government, as in the past, would claim an oil find before the general election.
Illum says Labour MP Justyne Caruana has said there is a ‘terror campaign’ in Gozo.
The overseas press
In an interview with Corriere dela Sera, the late Italian Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini described the Roman Catholic Church as being "200 years behind" the times. In his last interview at the beginning of August, when he knew his death was approaching, the Cardinal said: “The Church is tired... our prayer rooms are empty.” He urged the Church to acknowledge its errors and to embark on a radical path of change, beginning with the Pope. He said unless the Church adopted a more generous attitude towards divorced persons, it would lose the allegiance of future generations. The question, he said, was how the Church could help complex family situations. Cardinal Martini said the child sex scandals “oblige us to undertake a journey of transformation". Thousands of people have been filing past his coffin at Milan's cathedral. He will be buried on Monday.
The UN’s new envoy to Syria has said that President Bashar Assad’s regime should realise that the need for change was both “urgent” and “necessary” and that it must meet the “legitimate” demands of the Syrian people. Lakhdar Brahimi’s comments to al-Arabiya TV, came as Syrian warplanes and ground forces pounded the country’s largest city, Aleppo, with bombs and mortar rounds while soldiers clashed with rebels in the narrow streets of its old quarter, according to activists. Activists said rebels also captured an air defence facility in the east of the country near the border with Iraq.
Iran and North Korea have signed a scientific and technological co-operation agreement. Press TV said the agreement was signed in Tehran in the presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korea’s number two, Kim Yong Nam. Iran’s state TV did not provide further details.
Deutsche Welle reports that victims of the drug thalidomide, which caused defects in thousands of babies, have called an apology from a German company too little, too late. Grünenthal marketed thalidomide to pregnant women to treat morning sickness. As a side effect, some 10,000 babies were born missing arms or legs, blind, or with malformed organs. Charities estimate that today between 5,000 and 6,000 people are living with deformities. Before thalidomide was pulled from the market in 1961, pregnant women in 50 countries had bought the drug. The countries most affected included the UK, Germany, Japan, Canada and Australia.
CBS quotes the publisher of an insider account of the US Navy Seal raid that killed Osama bin Laden saying it would begin public sales next week despite a Pentagon warning of possible legal action against the author and others. Before the Pentagon’s warning, Penguin Group (USA) brought forward publication to September 4 from September 11, saying it was “important to put 'No Easy Day' on sale and let the book speak for itself”. An initial print run of 200,000 has been increased to 575,000 copies. According to the book, bin Laden was unarmed when Navy Seals found him in the raid on his Pakistan compound last year. It also describes bin Laden being shot in the head as he looked out from his bedroom door.
Al Ahram reports that the head of an Egyptian television network has denied calling for the murder of President Mohamed Mursi, as his trial on incitement charges began in Cairo. Tawfiq Okasha's TV channel was shut down last month after he called Mursi an illegitimate leader and a liar. Oshaka has denounced his trial as politically motivated, and says the Muslim Brotherhood, which backs Mursi, wants to silence all dissent. If convicted, Okasha could face three years in prison.
Angola Monitor says the country's long-serving President Jose Eduardo dos Santos and his MPLA party scored a landslide win taking 74 per cent of the vote. Opposition leaders have criticised the elections as one-sided and full of irregularities.
Variety reports American lyricist Hal David, who worked with Burt Bacharach to write some of the biggest hits of the 1960s and 70s, has died. He was 91. He had met Bacharach in New York in 1957, and they went on to write Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head, Walk On By and I Say A Little Prayer.
The death has also been announced of veteran British entertainer Max Bygraves, aged 89. ABC says the singer and comedian, diagnosed with Alzheimer's two years ago, died peacefully in his sleep at his home in Australia. Bygraves was one of nine children, grew up in a council flat in south-east London and started his career as a pub singer in his teens. He went on to become a popular variety performer.
A Chinese man has mailed himself to his girlfriend as a surprise for her birthday. The man planned to pop out of a box and kiss her as she picked up her post. But according to Global Post, things didn't work out so well for him. After hiring couriers to deliver the box to his girlfriend, there was confusion as to her address and the man found himself lost in the post. What was expected to take 30 minutes took three hours, for which time the hopeless romantic was sealed in a box. Eventually he managed to cut a hole in the box and started shouting. One of the delivery men set him free.