The following are the top stories in the Maltese and overseas press:
The Times says Kuwait has remained grateful for the support given to it by Guido de Marco. It also carries an aerial picture of the devastation on the site of the August 15 fireworks factory near Mosta.
The Malta Independent says Malta will bid farewell to Guido de Marco today. It also carries a story on restoration works on the Auberge de Castille.
In-Nazzjon says hundreds of people yesterday paid their respects to Guido de Marco. It also reports that the Kuwaiti Prime Minister has arrived for the funeral.
l-orizzont reports on fireworks explosions in Mosta over the years.
The overseas press
Le Monde reports that French President Nicolas Sarkozy has called on the European Union to establish a unified rapid reaction force to deal with natural disasters. He addressed the issue in a letter to EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, in the light of the devastating flooding in Pakistan but made reference to other natural disasters such as recent wildfires in Russia and the Haiti earthquake.
Meanwhile, Asia Observer quotes UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon asking for more international aid for Pakistan as it struggles to cope with the impact of two weeks of devastating floods. Speaking after the tour of some of the wordt affected areas, he said he had never seen destruction and suffering on such a scale before.
Al-Quds al-Arabi says two secular Palestinian organisations - the Popular Front and the Democratic Front - have joined Hamas in calling on President Mahmoud Abbas not to bow to US pressure to resume direct peace talks with Isreal. In a statement issued jointly after a meeting in Damascus with other Palestinian organisations that included Islamic Jihad, they described such talks as dangerous.
Meanwhile, The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel has rejected a Palestinian proposal to begin face-to-face peace talks on the basis of a statement by Quartet that could set a clear agenda for the negotiations. President ahmoud Abbas had indicated that he could go for face-to-face negotiations, if talks were based on a March 19 statement by the four parties involved in Middle East diplomacy. The Quartet had called on Israel to halt settlement building in the West Bank and reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians within 24 months, creating a state on the basis of the borders that existed before the 1967 Middle East war.
The Wall Street Journal predicts China would surpass Japan this year as the world's second-largest economy - an unprecedented position for a still-developing country. Second-quarter GDP figures from Japan reported this morning showed that its economic output, at $1.288 trillion, fell short of the $1.339 trillion China reported for the three months ended in June. The paper said this was seen as a good indication that China had the momentum to zip past Japan for the full year.
France 24 says some 30,000 people, many disabled or ailing, had to be evacuated from the shrine at Lourdes after the police received a bomb threat.
An opinion poll in The Age showed Australia's Labour government had a narrow lead over the conservative opposition. Support for Labour was at 52 percent while the conservative coalition was at 48 percent on a two-party preferred basis.
The Los Angeles Times reports eight people were killed and at least 17 injured when a contestant in a night-time desert race in California lost control of his pick-up truck and plowed into a group of spectators. Six of the injured are in a serious condition.
USA Today says President Obama and his family have ended a weekend trip to Florida aimed at showing support for tourism in a region still struggling due to the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The trip came after US officials announced that energy giant BP's runaway well had been sealed, and that they were moving ahead with plans to make sure it's truly "killed" by pumping cement in through a relief well under the Gulf of Mexico.
The Daily Mirror's lead story claims jewels worth £1 million were stolen during a raid on one of Britain's most prestigious shopping arcades - the heavily protected Royal Exchange centre in the City of London. In a raid on Saturday night, four men broke into two stores - the high-end jewellers De Beers and Swiss watchmakers Omega. The shopping centre also houses high-end stores like Gucci, Hermes and Cartier and specialist chocolatiers and tobacconists.