Monday Morning Briefing

Good morning

The update about Jacksonville’s fatal shooting, Trump’s reaction on McCain’s death, the Maltese newspapers’ front pages, North Korea’s reaction to the cancellation of this week’s follow up meeting and the request from a former Papal diplomat for the Pope to resign are amongst the main headlines covered around the world.

Your morning briefing for today is here.

The Times reports that families in St Paul’s Bay and Qawra will have to wait for at least another year for the opening of a new State primary school, a much- needed facility that was originally planned to be up and running by last year. Announced in 2015 by Education Minister Evarist Bartolo, the project was meant to address the rapid rise in population in the area, which has exceeded 20,000.

The Malta Independent leads with a story about an ap­pli­ca­tion for a nine storey home for the el­derly in Marsas­cala by Lay Lay Co. Ltd, of which Michael Ax­isa is a share­holder, has seen the lo­cal coun­cil ob­ject to the de­vel­op­ment.

The latest migration standoff between Malta and Italy ended yesterday but the war of words between the two countries remains, with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat saying politics is done by persuasion, not tweets is also covered on The Times.  A total of 150 migrants stranded in the port of Catania were allowed to land after other EU countries offered to take some of them and the rest were offered shelter in Italy following the intervention of the Catholic Church. L-Orizzont also reports this story on its front page.

In another story on migration, the Independent reports that MEP Miriam Dalli, who was re­cently ap­pointed rap­por­teur for mi­gra­tion, said that mi­gra­tion is not an is­sue for Malta or Italy alone, not even for the EU on its own, but an is­sue which re­quires a push from the United Na­tions.

In-Nazzjon leads with a story quoting Nationalist Party leader Adrian Delia, who said that Malta needs a society which cares and which offers a better quality of life for people.

L-Orizzont reports that a 70-year-old man was jailed for three years on Sunday after he admitted to having sexually abused two 15-year-old boys, giving them money or food in exchange for oral sex. Police were put on John Zammit’s tracks by an anonymous tip-off and the accused subsequently admitted to the charges while being interrogated by police.

A video gamer killed two people and wounded several others on Sunday when he opened fire with a handgun at a tournament that was being streamed online from a restaurant in Jacksonville, Florida, police said. Preliminary reports say four people were killed of the 11 people who were shot, according to a law enforcement official briefed on the incident. Read more 

Trump rejected plans for a White House statement praising heroism, life of McCain. The president opted instead for a short tweet that mentioned Sen. John McCain’s family rather than the man himself. The move underscored the bitter relationship between the two and Trump’s continued anger toward McCain, people close to both men said. Washington Post

Following Friday’s announcement that President Donald Trump had canceled the next round of talks over ’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Pyongyang on Sunday issued a blistering statement accusing the U.S. “double-dealing” and “hatching a criminal plot.” “Such acts prove that the U.S. is hatching a criminal plot to unleash a war against the DPRK [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] and commit a crime which deserves merciless divine punishment in case the U.S. fails in the scenario of the DPRK’s unjust and brigandish denuclearization first,” read the piece. Reuters

A former papal ambassador to the U.S. has claimed that Pope Francis knew as early as 2013 about charges that the former archbishop of Washington, ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, had been sexually active with seminarians and priests and that Pope Benedict XVI had privately disciplined him over the charges. NYT/WP Read more

The  Italian police identified the alleged smugglers who led the boat with the migrants on board, which were eventually rescued by the  MV Diciotti. Corriere Della Sera 

Italian Deputy Prime Minister Di Maio said that the Italian government assumes the political responsibility of the choices made on the case of the ship Diciotti, but there is “full respect” for the action of the judiciary for which we must not “attack” the prosecutors. TgCom/Ansa 

Israel’s defense minister has announced he will reopen the country’s main personnel crossing with the Gaza Strip following a week of relative calm along the border. (AP) 

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan vowed on Sunday to bring peace and safety to Iraq and areas in Syria not under Turkish control and said terrorist organisations in those areas would be eliminated. MEMO

A British-Iranian woman who has been imprisoned in Tehran since 2016 on spying charges returned to prison on Sunday, just three days after she was temporarily released. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe went back to prison voluntarily so that her young daughter did not see her “dragged out of bed in the middle of the night,” her husband Richard Ratcliffe said in a statement. CNN

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is making clear that she opposes setting new, more ambitious European emissions reduction targets for 2030. She says the continent needs to concentrate on fulfilling the aims it has already set. AP/DW

UK Conservative party associations are reporting a surge in members who have joined in the wake of Theresa May’s Chequers deal which has proved unpopular with the grassroots. The Telegraph

Arch-Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg has sparked anger after calling for people to be “inspected” crossing the Irish border after Brexit in the same way as “during the Troubles”.  The Irish deputy prime minister, Simon Coveney, attacked the “ill-informed” comment, saying on Twitter: “We have left ‘the Troubles’ behind us, through the sincere efforts of many, and we intend on keeping it that way.” The Independent

Theresa May will fly to sub-Saharan Africa on Monday for the first time in a bid to “renew” a historic partnership with the continent and forge new trade links for post-Brexit Britain.

It is “very, very unlikely” that Britain will crash out of the European Union next year without an exit deal with the bloc, Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney said on Sunday.Reuters 

Ing Philip Micallef has been nominated on the Hamburg Aviation Conference Advisory Council The Hamburg Aviation Conference was originally created by Hamburg Airport in 1998 and was key in achieving repositioning and globalization of the event in 2014.

As Emmerson Mnangagwa took the oath of office, he urged Zimbabwe to unite behind his presidency. It’s after a divisive election that US observers say called the country’s democratic credentials into question.

Iran’s parliament has removed Economy Minister Masoud Karbasian in the latest blow to a government struggling with a deepening economic crisis. The move follows new US sanctions and a sharp fall in the value of the rial.