The following are the top stories in the national and international press today.
Times of Malta says that photos of bikini-clad foreign cadets on official police boats from 2010 and 2012 have emerged, seemingly contradicting claims by former Police Commissioner John Rizzo that such pleasure cruises did not happen under his watch.The newspaper also carries former Minister Austin Gatt's first unprompted statement since retiring from politics.
L-Orizzont reports Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi saying that the mechanism with which gas is bought will be revised by the end of the year for more stable prices. It also reports Prime Minister Joseph Muscat saying that water and electricity rates will go down for families as from next March, as promised in Labour’s manifesto for the general election.
The Malta Independent says Malta had a record number of 984 irregular migrant arrivals last month, surpassing the July 2008 record of 809. It also carries a report of the compilation of evidence on the double murder of drug trafficker Mario Camilleri and his son Mario Jnr.
In-Nazzjon also leads with the compilation of evidence. It also reports on the visit the Nationalist Party’s eight candidates for the next EP elections paid party leader Simon Busuttil.
International news
Vote counting has begun in Zimbabwe's presidential and parliamentary elections. Global Post says turnout was high in a fierce contest between President Robert Mugabe's Zanu Party and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC. African Union observers have described the voting as “orderly and peaceful” despite allegations of fraud. Final results are expected by Monday.
Corriere della Seera reports heightened tension in Italy as the country awaits a Supreme Court decision on Silvio Berlusconi's high court challenge to his tax fraud conviction in the purchase of television rights for Berlusconi's Mediaset network. This is his final appeal, and if confirmed by Italy's highest court, Berlusconi would lose his Senate seat and be banned from running in elections.
VOA News says the sentencing phase of Bradley Manning's court martial has begun, with his lawyers seeking to reduce a potential sentence by having some of his convictions merged. If the judge agrees, it would mean Manning faces up to 116 years in prison instead of 136 years. The sentencing phase is scheduled to last until August 23.
According to Ansa, EU border agency Frontex has expressed alarm at a recent wave of migrant arrivals on the southern coast of Italy. In the last week, 1,300 migrants landed in Sicily and Lampedusa. Frontex described this as “a worrying signal that requires continuous monitoring”.
The government parties in Ireland are at odds over an insistence by the troika – the EU, the FMI and the European Central bank – that that this year's annual budget include a €3.1 billion worth of savings. According to the Irish Times, the Labour Party, junior coalition partners with the centre-right Fine Gael, have accused the troika of imposing an “arbitrary” target on the state.
Reuters reports Ahmed Ibrahim, a former minister in the government of Muammar Gaddafi, has been sentenced to death for inciting violence against protesters during the uprising that led to the Libyan dictator's overthrow in 2011. In the first such ruling against a Gaddafi-era official, a court in Misrata found him guilty of undermining national security and plotting the killing of civilians.
Al Ahram says Egypt's military-backed interim government has ordered the police to end sit-in protests in Cairo by supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi, declaring them a threat to national security. Egyptian authorities have also referred the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Mohammed Badie, and two other senior Brotherhood officials to a court on charges of inciting violence.
The New York Times reports UN inspectors will investigate three sites in Syria where chemical weapons attacks were alleged to have occurred “as soon as possible”. The move follows a deal the UN reached with Damascus last week.
According to The Guardian, the White House declined to say whether the administration ever briefed the US Congress about a top-secret National Security Agency spy programme that, according to documents, allows analysts to search through huge databases of emails, online chats and the browsing histories without prior authorisation. The newspaper had revealed how the NSA describes in training materials that the programme, called XKeyscore, is its “widest-reaching” system for developing intelligence from the internet. The disclosure came from documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Meanwhile, Snowden's father said he was grateful to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his government for their “courage” and “strength” in protecting his son, who is wanted for leaking top-secret US security agency files. In an interview with the Rossiya-24 television news network, Lon Snowden said his son was unlikely to get a fair trial in the United States, so Russia remains the safest place for him at the moment.
The Financial Times reports former Conservative Party treasurer Peter Cruddas has criticised British Prime Minister avid Cameron for treating him as an “outcast” within hours of a Sunday Times newspaper story over which he on Wednesday won £180,000 in damages, plus his legal costs of £500,000. A judge found the newspaper had been misleading and malicious in its report of a meeting between the financier and two journalists posing as international financiers.
Sky News reports that Ryanair has raised the cost for passengers taking luggage in the hold of its planes from €30 to €50 for the summer. The no-frills carrier's chief executive Michael O'Leary told a news conference in London it intended to increase baggage charges until no-one took its flights with hold luggage. He said Ryanair had reduced the number of its passengers who checked in hold baggage from 80 per cent to 19 per cent and that this was saving the airline “a fortune in money”.