Pictures of the man that went missing for five years and the Spice girls dominate the front pages of the paper's today.

The Sun though leads with the headline

LIBERATED with the news that

FREED teddy bear row teacher Gillian Gibbons has arrived back in England and is longing to tuck into her favourite dish of fish and chips.
Relieved Gillian, 54, was granted a dramatic pardon just days after being thrown in jail in Sudan for insulting Islam by naming a teddy Mohammed.
Her early release was ordered by President Omar al-Bashir after mercy pleas from British Muslim peers Lord Ahmed and Baroness Sayeeda Warsi.

The Telegraph adds that

Her release caused protests outside the British embassy in Khartoum by hardliners who felt her 15 day jail sentence after she was convicted for insulting Islam was too lenient.
With political relations still strained between the two countries, Lord Steel, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, yesterday flew out leading an all-party delegation to Sudan for a five-day goodwill visit.

Tory peer's triumph delights Camerons says the Guardian

The release of Gillian Gibbons is a relief for the UK government, but in political terms, it is a PR triumph for the Tories.
David Cameron raised eyebrows when he made Sayeeda Warsi the most prominent Muslim woman yet in British politics, handing her a seat in his shadow cabinet with responsibility for community cohesion and making her a working peer.

The front page of the Mirror has the headline

WHERE WAS I FOR FIVE YEARS

Mr Darwin, 57, walked into a police station at the weekend, announcing: "I think I'm a missing person."
He told detectives he has no idea where he has been for five years since the remains of his shattered canoe were found washed up on a beach.
But neighbours remembered him as an anti-social oddball who had variously worked as a science teacher, bank worker and prison officer. adding

Bizarrely, he used up to 20 phonelines installed in his bedroom to dabble on the Stock Market.
Residents were immediately suspicious when his canoe was found wrecked, with no trace of his body, declaring: "He's done a Reggie Perrin."

The Times adding that

But it is his wife’s sudden departure from their seven-bedroom home that has puzzled neighbours in the coastal community of Seaton Carew, near Hartlepool.
Bill Rodriguez, a former neighbour, said that when he last saw Mrs Darwin in August, she told him that she had just returned from a six-week holiday in Panama. “She said she loved it out there and was going to move out full-time,” he said.

The Guardian leads with the revelation that

US spies give shock verdict on Iran threat


US intelligence agencies undercut the White House yesterday by disclosing for the first time that Iran has not been pursuing a nuclear weapons development programme for the past four years. The secret report, which was declassified yesterday and published, marked a significant shift from previous estimates. "Tehran's decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005," it said.

The Times adds

As recently as August Mr Bush warned that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology could lead to a holocaust and that the US “will confront this danger before it is too late”. In October he said that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to a third world war.
Last night, however, Mr Bush’s closest aides claimed that the finding was vindication for the White House’s muscular but diplomatic approach. Stephen Hadley, Mr Bush’s National Security Advisor, said that the White House was only told last week about the new assessment of Iran’s nuclear programme.

It leads with

Backlash over sex education failings

Teenagers are being taught sex education so badly in schools that many are left in complete ignorance about how to avoid sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy.
A letter to The Times today from leading children’s organisations, sexual health experts and eight members of the Commons Health Select Committee, calls on the Government to make relationship teaching a statutory part of the national curriculum.

Medical matters on the front of the Mail too

End of the IVF twins: New restrictions mean only one embryo can be used in fertility treatment

Under plans that could spell heartache for thousands of childless couples, regulators want to cap the number of multiple births.
Clinics are currently permitted to return two or even three embryos to a woman's womb during IVF treatment.
This maximises the chances of at least one of the embryos resulting in a successful pregnancy.

Whilst the paper carries the warning that

House prices 'will plummet by 10pc over the next year', says banking chief

Morgan Stanley's chief UK economist David Miles warned that prices will drop 10 per cent next year.
That would be the biggest full-year decline since records began in 1969.
A drop on that scale could plunge thousands of people into negative equity and recall the worst days of the recession of the 1990s.

More bad news on the front of the Express

FRUIT AND VEG PRICES UP 23%

THE price of fruit and vegetables has soared to a three-year high.
A typical shopping basket of the nation’s favourite fresh produce now costs 23 per cent more than it did in July.
And with demand increasing in the run-up to Christmas, experts say prices will continue shooting up.

The Telegraph leads with the news that

Anger as fines from speed cameras soar

Almost two million speeding tickets are being issued to motorists each year following Labour's vast expansion of the speed camera network, official figures disclosed last night.Since the party came to power, the number of fixed penalty notices for speeding has almost trebled from 700,000 a year to more than 1.9 million, the Government statistics showed.

The papers are still reporting on the Donor scandal,the same paper reveals

Peter Hain caught up in Labour funding row

Peter Hain, the Work and Pensions Secretary, admitted that he had not registered all the donations to his unsuccessful deputy leadership campaign with electoral watchdogs as is legally required.Mr Hain said his failure to register the payments was "extremely regrettable" and apologised, while sources stressed the failure to declare the money was an "administrative error".

Meanwhile the Times reports

You can’t quit over donations row – or Harman may be next’

Gordon Brown’s election chief, Douglas Alexander, ordered his sister not to resign as Scottish Labour Party leader for fear of causing fallout throughout the Cabinet.
The disclosure that Mr Alexander put pressure on his sister, Wendy Alexander, came as Peter Hain admitted failing to register donations properly and as the Prime Minister tried to rally his demoralised party at a meeting of backbenchers.

The Mail meanwhile reveals

Northern Rock owes the taxpayer £30billion but is lavishing pay rises and bonuses on staff

Staff at Northern Rock have been handed bumper pay rises and a £200


Christmas bonus, even though the bank owes the taxpayer almost £30billion.
Customers of the beleaguered bank called the pay rises 'disgraceful and entirely inappropriate' last night.
All 6,000 employees were given a £200 bonus and a 2 per cent one-off sum - in addition to a 4 per cent increase. and

Disgraced data boss sails into a top Whitehall job

The Whitehall boss who quit over the missing data scandal has landed another Government job, it emerged last night.
Paul Gray stepped down as chief executive of Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs last month after two discs containing the personal details of 25million child benefit claimants were lost in the post by bungling officials.
He is now working at the Cabinet Office leading a project on "developing civil servant skills".

'Datagate' damaged Labour more than donor row, poll shows says the Independent

The loss of sensitive personal data of 25 million people is damaging Labour more than the row over its secret donations, according to the latest "poll of polls" for The Independent.
It shows that the Conservatives opened a seven-point lead over Labour last month. The Tories are on 39 per cent, Labour 32 per cent and the Liberal Democrats 17 per cent,according to the weighted average of the polls taken in November by Ipsos MORI, Populus, YouGov, ICM and ComRes. Labour's support fell away sharply in the wake of the "Datagate" crisis, leaving the party in almost as bad a position as it was in the final weeks before Tony Blair announced his resignation. But David Cameron should not be celebrating yet, according to John Curtice, professor of politics at Strathclyde University, who compiled the figures. They would leave the Tories 16 seats short of an overall majority if repeated at a general election. The Tories would have 310 seats, Labour 273, the Liberal Democrats 36 and other parties 31.

Its front page launches

An appeal for your help this Christmas

Fatmata was born in a land where one in four babies dies before the age of five. She has been given hope by one of the charities in our Christmas appeal. Last year, readers responded with huge generosity to help the poor and dispossessed throughout the world. This year, with your help, many more children will have cause to smile

The Guardian reports that

Russian election unfair and biased towards Putin, observers say

International observers issued a highly scathing report on Russia's elections yesterday, describing the poll as "not fair" and highlighting numerous flaws including the "unprecedented" abuse of office by President Vladimir Putin.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Sunday's parliamentary elections had failed to meet the organisation's commitments and standards. "It was not a fair election," Göran Lennmarker, the head of the OSCE's parliamentary assembly said.

Putin keeps Russia guessing on future says the Telegraph

Russians are anxiously awaiting word on their leader's future as Vladimir Putin prepares to use his overwhelming victory in a flawed parliamentary election to retain power beyond his official retirement date next year. Shrugging off international condemnation of the vote, the president kept his nation guessing as he savoured his triumph largely in private.


Voters reject Chavez's attempt to become president for life says the Indy

A humbled Hugo Chavez has paid tribute to his opponents and conceded that the sweeping constitutional changes he had sought to accelerate his socialist revolution in Venezuela and enable him to seek re-election indefinitely had been narrowly defeated in Sunday's national referendum.

Water shortages are likely to be trigger for wars, says UN chief Ban Ki Moon says the Times

A struggle by nations to secure sources of clean water will be “potent fuel” for war, the first Asia-Pacific Water Summit heard yesterday.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ban Ki Moon, told delegates from across the region that the planet faced a water crisis that was especially troubling for Asia.
High population growth, rising consumption, pollution and poor water management posed significant threats, he said, adding that climate change was also making “a bad situation worse”.

And now to the Spice Girls

BACK WITH A BANG says the Sun

THEY may be nine years older — but they’ve never been bolder.
The SPICE GIRLS are back on stage, belting out hits and quick-changing from one girdle-tight costume to another.
Scary wore her trademark leopard prints, Sporty pulled on a tracksuit, Baby was in bubble-gum pink, Posh pouted in a black dress and Ginger sparkled in a sequined Union Flag dress.

Spice Girls reunion rocks Vancouver says the Telegraph

After a nine-year wait and months of feverish hype, a sell-out audience of almost 16,000 finally got to sample the new and improved Spice Girls as they kicked off their reunion world tour in the Canadian city.