The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta and the other media report how Lawrence Gonzi knew about the Skanska closure talks.
MaltaToday says Paul Camilleri, former president of the Foundation for Medical Services said Skanska had negotiated in bad faith.
The Malta Independent quotes Dr Gonzi saying he never met Mr Camilleri to discuss the closure agreement.
l-orizzont claims Dr Gonzi approved the closure agreement witht he waiver.
In-Nazzjon reports PN comments that taxpayers should not be made to pay for the weak concrete at Mater Dei.
Press digest
According to Goal.com, numerous leading figures within the world of football wasted little time in welcoming the announcement by Sepp Blatter that he is to resign his 17-year reign as FIFA president after a week in which the game’s governing body has been rocked by a corruption scandal. UEFA president Michel Platini praised his “friend” for taking the “difficult” and “brave” decision to quit, but German Football Association president Wolfgang Niersbach told Bild the decision was “long overdue”. English Football Association chief Greg Dyke, one of Blatter’s fiercest critics, told the BBC the resignation was “brilliant for world football”. Portugal legend Luis Figo, who withdrew from the FIFA presidential race before last week’s election, posted on Facebook: “Change is finally coming!” The Dutch football governing body was similarly enthused by Blatter’s announcement, having seen its president Michael van Praag also fail in his bid to garner sufficient support to oust him. Brazil icon Romario said “his fall will come as a tsunami to every corrupt leader in the confederations around the world”.
According to Xinhua, over 430 Chinese tourists, many of them thought to be elderly, were still missing early this morning, more than a day after their tour boat sank in the Yangtze River after being hit by a strong storm, possibly a tornado. Thousands of rescuers are working in earnest to find survivors, with some managing to extract three people trapped alive in the overturned boat. But more than 36 hours after the disaster, only 14 people had been rescued. Only seven were confirmed dead, but the number of dead seems certain to rise significantly.
France 24 reports the meeting of the international coalition confirmed its commitment to fight ISIS following the recent offensive of the jihadist militias in Ramadi, Iraq, and in Palmyra, Syria. However, Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni told AGI that “absolutely no mention was made of a ground intervention”. At the end of the meeting at the Quai D’Orsay, Gentiloni said an international group was also trying to stem the source of financing for ISIS – “five or six their most important financiers are involved in the smuggling of works of art and archaeological finds”.
Meanwhile, al bawaba quotes the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights saying the jihadists of the self-styled Islamic State have stoned to death a Syrian woman accused of adultery. Five young al-Mayadins were also executed: four were accused of “apostasy and incitement to combat IS” and the fifth of sodomy. The latter was thrown over a mountain.
According to The Medi Telegraph, the international transport magazine, Libya’s public finances, wracked by a dramatic loss in oil revenue that has been exacerbated by a power struggle between rival governments, are foundering. The crisis has prompted the authorities in Tripoli, who control much of western Libya, to plan cuts to petrol subsidies, to delay public salary payments and to ban on imports from cars to steel. And it has already been forcing its central to burn through its foreign reserves. UN Special Envoy Bernadino Leon said last week, “Libya is on the verge of economic and financial collapse.”
Kathimerini quotes Greek banking sources saying the European Central Bank raised the roof of the emergency liquidity for Greek banks by €500 million to €80.7 billion euro. According to the same sources the Greek banks have a liquidity “of only €3 million euro”.
US President Barack Obama has chosen the Israel’s TV Channel 2 to say directly what he thinks of Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and his policies. He noted that Netanyahu was “skeptical” about a Palestinian-Israeli peace and that in his objection to the need for an agreement with the other party was the risk that Israel loses credibility. It raised questions, Obama said, “as to whether with him as Prime Minister, we can achieve peace”. Obama also confirmed his reservations of Netanyahu’s address to the US Congress.
The Financial Times says the British public has reacted angrily to the news that their MPs will increase the salary by 10 per cent from the current annual £67,000 (€92,000) to £74,000 (€101,000). The news came despite the commitment made during the election campaign by the Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron to freeze their wages. At the same time, the government is reducing pension benefits and cut public salaries and wages.
According to London’s Daily Telegraph, Argentineans top the list “thieves of hotel properties”. They are followed by Singaporeans, Spanish, Germans, Irish, Russians, Mexicans, Italians, Japanese and Americans. Hotels usually find bathrobes are missing as well as drinks and snacks from the mini-bar, prints and paintings and, in some cases, TV sets. Soaps and bubble baths are now considered as “gifts” by the hoteliers themselves.