The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press
The Times leads with a story on the cost of Monday's storm. It also reports how Moody's has maintained Malta's credit ratings.
The Malta Independent also leads with a story on the storm damage. It also carries reactions from Health Minister Joe Cassar on reports that Nationalist MP Franco Debono would move a no confidence motion against him.
MaltaToday says a man is in court for branding his children with a soldering gun.
l-orizzont gives prominence to the funeral yesterday of the baby who died in a bath last Friday.
In-Nazzjon also leads with the Moody's rating report on Malta.
The overseas press
A new ILO report finds 75 million young people around the world are unemployed and suggests that jobless rates among young people will worsen globally as the spillover of the euro crisis spreads from advanced to emerging economies. Lead author of the report and head of the ILO Global Employment Trends Unit, Ekkehard Ernst, told Tribune de Genève that the euro crisis was spreading beyond Europe and slowing down economies from East Asia to Latin America. The situation was particularly severe in the Middle East and North Africa, where youth unemployment was above 25 percent and rising.
The 2012 US Democratic convention is underway aiming to give a significant boost to President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. StarTribune says delegates cheered as a parade of speakers extolled Obama's support for abortion rights and gay marriage, for consumer protections enacted under his signature health care law and for the auto industry bailout he won from Congress in his first year in office. The crowd cheered even louder when the subject turned – dismissively – to Republican Mitt Romney whom they described as a millionaire candidate for president who "quite simply doesn't get it".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has presented a passionate appeal for solidarity among eurozone nations during a speech in which she rejected the notion of a "debt union". Business Recorder says that addressing some 3,000 people in one of the beer tents at the Gillamoos folk festival in Bavaria, Merkel said countries such as Greece, Portugal and Spain were going through a difficult period and "deserve our solidarity". She reiterated, however, the three countries would have to push forward with the implementation of their reform programmes despite the difficulties.
The leader of France’s far-right National Front, Marine Le Pen, has told BFM TV that her party’s two parliamentarians would vote against the European treaty and that the party would organise a campaign opposing it. She claimed the treaty would enact strict and enforceable budget rules. The French parliament will vote on the treaty in the autumn. Le Pen also told the station the euro was an error and it was time to fix it.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Store has said his country would push inside the European Union for support for the Palestinian bid to seek statehood recognition from the United Nations. al bawaba says Store’s comments followed a meeting with Arab League Secretary General Nabeel Al-Arabi in Cairo during which they discussed the latest developments in the Middle East. Earlier, Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Store saying Norway would recognise a Palestinian state. He said he believed only negotiations could solve matters between Israel and the Palestinians and these should commence immediately.
Deutsche Welle reports representatives of 50 countries met in Berlin to discuss Syria's future economy after warfare ends in Syria. German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, who is hosting the talks, called on members of the Syrian opposition movement to create conditions that would make it easier a for a transitional government to take power.
The New York Times says the new international envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, has described the death toll in the conflict as "staggering" and the destruction "catastrophic". In his first address to the UN General Assembly since his appointment on Saturday, Brahimi called for unity in addressing the crisis.
New York Post says United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has described the humanitarian situation in Syria was grave and deteriorating. Ban told the General Assembly that UN efforts to help Syrian refugees were badly under-funded with only half the money needed contributed so far.
According to Irish News, there has been a third night to violence in Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland. The police came under attack as they tried to keep rival sectarian groups apart. Members of the protestant pelted the police with stones, bottles and fireworks.
Le Matin reports 42 people were killed and another 24 were injured when a bus drove off a road in central Morocco and plunged down a 150-metre ravine. The bus overturned between the desert cities of Marrakesh and Ouarzazate. Four of the injured are in a serious condition.
New York Daily Record quotes Pentagon press secretary George Little saying the book “No Easy Day” revealed “sensitive and classified” information and should have been submitted to the Pentagon before publication for a formal review of potential disclosures. Little would not say what damage may result from the book’s revelations. The book chronicles a former Navy SEAL’s insider account of the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden, A lawyer for the author, Matt Bissonnette, has disputed that he was legally obliged to have the book screened before publication.
A close ally of Chinese President Hu Jintao has been demoted following reports that his son was killed in a car crash in the company of two scantily-dressed girls, both of whom were injured. South China Morning Post sources confirmed reports that Ling Gu, the son of once high-ranking communist official Ling Jihua, was killed last March while driving a Ferrari. The reports said he was also half-dressed at the time of the crash, suggesting that at the time the youngsters embarked on some sexual adventure. The embarrassing reports of the alleged crash follow closely at the heels of China's biggest political scandal in decades – the fall from grace of senior politician Bo Xilai, whose wife received a suspended death sentence last month, after admitting to killing a British businessman by poison.