The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press.
Times of Malta reports how Skanska has refuted fraud claims over the hospital concrete.
The Malta Independent says the UK government has guaranteed a £2 billion nuclear power station deal with China.
In-Nazzjon highlights the official Independence Day celebrations yesterday.
l-orizzont looks into the EU talks on migration and proposals to fine countries for every migrant they refuse.
The overseas press
German cabinet ministers have said they will do everything in their power to help shed light on Volkswagen’s scandal surrounding its efforts to thwart US pollution tests. Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt told Bild he had asked the Federal Motor Transport Authority to immediately have specific and comprehensive tests conducted by independent experts.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports the European Commission said it was taking VW’s cheating seriously and was in contact with US regulators and the company about details of the case. The carmaker’s market value plunged as much as 23 per cent to €125.40 in Frankfurt, wiping out about €15.6 billion. The stock closed at €132.2 – the lowest in more than three years.
Ahora says Pope Francis has praised the sacrifices of the Catholic Church in communist Cuba. He made the comment at a mass in Holguin attended by a crowd of 150,000 faithful in sweltering heat before arriving in the afternoon to rain in Santiago, where thousands of people greeted his motorcade. Francis will later today fly from Havana to Washington.
According to a document of the Pennsylvania State Police's Criminal Intelligence Centre, obtained by NBC, the police fear that terrorists may disguise themselves as police officers and fire fighters to launch attacks in the country during the Pope’s visit. Using false documents, they could also enter restricted areas.
Kathimerini reports leftist leader Alexis Tsipras has been sworn in as Greece’s prime minister for the second time in nine months – pledging to “uphold the constitution and laws” of the country. After taking his oath of office, Tsipras criticized the European Union’s handling of the on-going refugee crisis and urged all member states to share the responsibility. EU leaders are due to discuss the crisis at an extraordinary summit tomorrow.
According to La Republica, Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi told an executive meeting of his Democratic Party that the European Union “was born to knock down walls, not to build them”. He said Hungary’s border fence was Italy’s concern too since “if you stop the flow in that direction, we have to pose the problem of how to respond to the urge for freedom of those who are feeling”.
The head of Indonesia’s national counter-terrorism agency has warned of the imminent deployment of foreign terrorist fighters from Malaysia. In a rare interview, Saud Usman Nasution told ABC that the Islamic State was working with people smuggling networks to bring foreign fighters to Indonesia.
Chinese President Xi Jinping today embarks on a six-day state visit to the US. The People’s Daily says the first leg of Xi’s state visit will be Seattle, where he is set to hold talks with US corporate leaders. He will then head to Washington on Thursday to meet President Obama. China’s huge trade surplus with the US, cyber security and Beijing’s territorial disputes with neighbouring countries over the South China Sea are expected to be on the agenda.
Berliner Zeitung reveals German prosecutors have charged a 91-year-old woman with 260,000 counts of accessory to murder over allegations she was a member of the Nazi SS who served in the Auschwitz death camp complex. The woman, whose name was not disclosed due to German privacy laws, is alleged to have served as a radio operator for the camp commandant from April to July 1944.
Le Pays says Gen. Gilbert Diendere, the Burkina Faso general who seized power in a coup last week, has apologised to the nation and said he would hand over control to a civilian transitional government after the military warned that its forces would converge on the capital and forcibly disarm the soldiers behind the power grab.
In four years of college, about a fourth of undergraduate women at leading universities are sexually assaulted by force or when they are incapacitated by alcohol or drugs. The New York Times quotes the results of a survey commissioned by the American Association of Universities, which shows that 26.1 per cent of female college seniors said that since entering college, they had experienced some kind of unwanted sexual contact – anything from touching to rape. Of those, 13.5 per cent had experienced penetration, attempted penetration or oral sex. In all, about a third of women who responded to the survey reported some type of unwanted sexual contact since entering college.
British classics like Cornish pasties and Cumberland sausages could be threatened by imports of foreign imitations under a new European Union trade deal. The Sun reports Labour MP Geraint Davies has warned that an agreement between the EU, Canada and the US could weaken existing laws that protect regional specialities from being copied. He said the UK could be flooded by cheap, non-authentic products that could “bind governments for 20 years”.