The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
The Times of Malta reports how ARMS has got its third chairman since April. It also features a Talking Point by Lawrence Gonzi as he retires from politics today.
The Malta Independent quotes the prime minister saying the privatisation unit should not have been involved in a call for legal services by Minister Chris Cardona.
Malta Today says former minister Austin Gatt daid he was not interested since he is retired when he was questioned on the auditor’s report on Enemalta’s oil procurement practises.
l-orizzont quotes Joseph Muscat saying the PN and its leadership must assume responsibility for Enemalta’s oil procurement practices as reported by the Auditor.
In-Nazzjon says Lawrence Gonzi in a letter to PN leader Simon Busuttil said he was grateful to the Nationalist Party for having given him the opportunity to serve the country. It also says that Joseph Muscat is defending minister Chris Cardona. In another story, it says that nursing aides in Gozo have ended up whitewashing walls
The overseas press
The United Nations says 5,000 people are dying every month in the Syrian war and refugees are fleeing at the rate of 6,000 a day – a level that has not been seen since the genocide in Ruanda in 1994. The New York Times quotes UN refugee chief Antonio Guterres saying two-thirds of the 1.8 million refugees registered with the UN had fled Syria since the beginning of the year. He said the impact of the refugee crisis on neighbouring countries was “crushing”, but confirmed the acceptance of Syrians by countries such as Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq was “saving hundreds of thousands of lives”. The UN last month said nearly 93,000 people had been killed since the uprising began in March 2011.
The Washington Post says lawsuit has been filed against the US Government to try to hold its electronic surveillance programme. A coalition of human rights activists, church leaders and drug and gun rights groups took the action claiming that surveillance of telephone activity by the National Security Agency violated their rights.
Meanwhile, Pravda reports fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has applied for temporary asylum in Russia. The Federal Migration Service has confirmed he had completed the relevant paperwork at Moscow's airport, where he has been for the past three weeks. As he has no travel documents, he had been unable to take up asylum offers from a number of Latin American states.
Corriere della Sera reports a political row involving the expulsion from Italy of the wife and daughter of well-known Kazak dissident, Mukhtar Ablyazov, threatens to destabilise Italy’s coalition government. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano is fighting calls for his resignation. Prime Minister Enrico Letta ordered a review after an outcry surrounding the handling of Ablyazov's wife, Alma Shalabayeva, and six-year-old girl, who were seized in a night-time raid and put on a private jet with Kazakh diplomats at the end of May.
Kathimerini says thousands of Greek workers have taken part in yet another 24-hour strike called by trade unions to protest against government plans to cut public sector jobs. Hospital services, public transport and flights were affected by the industrial action. Demonstrations have been building for several days over the latest set of deeply unpopular austerity measures. MPs plan to pass a bill this week to start receiving €6.8 billion of bailout loans to keep Greece afloat.
Wall Street Journal says financial regulators in the United Sates have upheld a fine of $450 million (€342.5 million) on Barclays Bank and four of its traders for manipulating electricity prices in the state of California between 2006 and 2008. The fine was first proposed last October. Barclays has denied any wrongdoing.
Granma reports the Cuban government has acknowledged that the cargo ship seized in Panama was carrying Soviet-era obsolete weapons to be repaired in North Korea and returned to Cuba. The vessel was stopped last week on suspicion of smuggling drugs but officials instead found military equipment hidden underneath sugar.
The Independent leads with the news that the British Government has approved more than 3,000 export licences for military equipment sales to countries which it believes have questionable records on human rights. The British sales of arms to repressive states, including China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Israel, amount to £12.3 billion (€14.15 billion).
Ansa says Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano joked on Twitter that he was "sound as a fish" after a spacewalk outside the International Space Station was called off when he reported a water leak inside his helmet. He and fellow astronaut Chris Cassidy saw their work conducted outside the station in space itself suspended while NASA dealt with the problem. Reportedly Parmitano's eyes, nose and mouth were soaked from water inside the helmet and the six-hour spacewalk was cut off after just one hour.
Fox News reports that a hospital in Los Angeles had to emphatically ask people to stop sending pizza after a child being treated for cancer received more than 20 from Internet users in one day. Reddit user “ashortstorylong” posted a photo of a sign in the window of a hospital that said: “Send Pizza RM 4112″ with the headline: “Photo taken outside Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles. Smart Kid.” Reddit users later commented and said they’d taken the liberty to send pizza to the hospital room. On Saturday, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles posted a picture of the young patient enjoying the pizza, along with some details about her and her family.Hazel Hammersley is two years old, and she is undergoing chemotherapy.