Blair to do deal over EU charter is the headline in the Sunday Times as the papers preview the Pm's swansong

Tony Blair is preparing to cave in to pressure to sign up Britain to a sweeping new human rights charter.

The prime minister is ready to do a deal over the European charter of fundamental rights this week amid fears that plans for a treaty to replace the failed European Union constitution will collapse if he refuses to compromise.
However Downing Street is pessimistic about the general prospect of a successful outcome to the EU summit, starting in Brussels on Thursday.

Blair fears failure on EU treaty says the Telegraph

The Prime Minister has admitted to close colleagues that securing a deal on a successor to the EU constitution that can be "sold" to British voters without holding a referendum will be "diabolically difficult".
Mr Blair and Gordon Brown, who will succeed him as Prime Minister next week, are under pressure to back down and announce a public vote to endorse a new treaty, which is likely to hand swathes of power to Brussels.

The swansong may still be Iraq,

A bloody epitaph to Blair's war headlines the Indy

Graphic and shocking new information - including a photograph showing his battered and bruised face - about the death of Baha Mousa, the Basra hotel receptionist killed in British military custody in September 2003, has emerged as scores of Iraqis prepare to sue the Ministry of Defence for alleged mistreatment in detention.
The dead man's father, Daoud Mousa al-Maliki, is bringing a case on his son's behalf in the next four weeks, following Wednesday's ruling by the Law Lords that the Human Rights Act applies to civilians arrested and detained by British forces in Iraq. Nine other cases are proceeding at the same time, and solicitors say another 30 are in the pipeline.

Whilst the Observer claims

Blair knew US had no post-war plan for Iraq

Tony Blair agreed to commit British troops to battle in Iraq in the full knowledge that Washington had failed to make adequate preparations for the postwar reconstruction of the country.
In a devastating account of the chaotic preparations for the war, which comes as Blair enters his final full week in Downing Street, key No 10 aides and friends of Blair have revealed the Prime Minister repeatedly and unsuccessfully raised his concerns with the White House.

'WE NEED IRAQ INQUIRY' says the Sunday Mirror

A BRITISH general who was at the centre of plans to rebuild Iraq last night called for an immediate public inquiry into the fiasco.
Major General Tim Cross is the first officer who has served in the war zone to break rank and criticise the Government.
He repeatedly warned Tony Blair before and after the invasion that reconstruction plans were deeply flawed. General Cross said Iraq faced anarchy without more Coalition troops and advised against disbanding the Iraq army - which proved disastrous.

The Telegraph leads with

Top medic blasts delay in treating troops

Wounded British troops are being evacuated from the battlefield more slowly than the Americans managed in Vietnam 40 years ago, one of the Army's most senior surgeons has revealed.In a withering attack on defence medical policy, Lt Col Paul Parker condemned the treatment of injured troops in Iraq and Afghanistan as being "excessively slow". He blamed the delays on "too much middle management".

After a week of violence in the Palestinian territories,the Times reports

Israel plans attack on Gaza

ISRAEL’s new defence minister Ehud Barak is planning an attack on Gaza within weeks to crush the Hamas militants who have seized power there.
According to senior Israeli military sources, the plan calls for 20,000 troops to destroy much of Hamas’s military capability in days.
The raid would be triggered by Hamas rocket attacks against Israel or a resumption of suicide bombings.
Barak, who is expected to become defence minister tomorrow, has already demanded detailed plans to deploy two armoured divisions and an infantry division, accompanied by assault drones and F-16 jets, against Hamas.

According to the Independent

Abbas wins US backing as Fatah stages revenge raids

The United States made clear yesterday it would give aid to the new emergency Palestinian government as hundreds of Fatah activists conducted reprisal raids against Hamas officials and offices in the West Bank.
The US Consul General in Jerusalem, Jacob Walles, told the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, that his new government will be granted a lifting of the boycott imposed 15 months ago after Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections last year.
The move means that American aid will be channelled to the West Bank but not to Gaza, where Hamas remains in control after its military wing secured victory over Fatah forces in five days of savage armed conflict last week.

How Hamas turned on Palestine's 'traitors' reports the Observer

The first intimation something was different about the explosion of violence in Gaza between the forces of the government Islamist party Hamas and the Fatah fighters of President Mahmoud Abbas came with a no-show.
A week ago, as four senior Fatah officials sat down with Egyptian mediators hoping to negotiate an end to months of spiralling violence, a message arrived from Hamas that it would not be coming. A resurgence in fighting between the two sides made it too dangerous to travel to the meeting.

The Sunday Mirror on Father's day reveals

ALL I THINK OF IS MADDY

GERRY McCann spent a family day out at the zoo yesterday - but told how Father's Day without snatched Madeleine today would be hell.
The heart surgeon, whose four-year-old daughter was grabbed 45 days ago, said: "Even though we are here in Portugal I know it's Father's Day because some friends are doing a 10k run for me in Glasgow to mark it. I can't think about anything other than how we can help try and get Madeleine back."
Gerry and wife Kate, who took two-year-old twins Amelie and Sean to Lagos Zoo on the Algarve, told how they will take time out today from the hunt to remember last year's happier Father's Day.

The papers are full of yesterday's wedding cornocupia

ON ME WED MATE says the News of the World

IT WAS the day soccer stars suffered three-match tension.
England's Steven Gerrard, Gary Neville and Michael Carrick wed their WAGS yesterday in a hat-trick of posh ceremonies.

With the papers going into much detail,this on Gerrards wedding form the same paper

The pair had splashed out £750,000 for their big day, but according to insiders they will be scooping £1million from a glossy magazine deal which meant photos of the event were under wraps.
Alex, 24, wore a white, figure-hugging £60,000 dress. One guest said: "She looked absolutely breathtaking. She reminded me of Paris Hilton." Liverpool hero Gerrard, 27, wore a three-piece grey suit and a £50,000 diamond stud.
The four bridesmaids featured the couple's daughters Lilly-Ella, three and Lexie, one.
Guests included England star Michael Owen and wife Louise, Peter Crouch, Jamie Carragher, Rio Ferdinand, Theo Walcott and Jamie Redknapp.

The Mirror reporting

it was Wayne Rooney and fiancee Coleen McLoughlin who stole the show - by turning up to a hat-trick of weddings within 72 hours.
First they went to England captain John Terry's marriage to Toni Poole at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire on Friday. Then they jumped on a helicopter and flew up to Man Utd teammate Gary Neville's wedding yesterday.
Then today - "utterly gutted" at missing Gerrard's wedding in Berkshire - they plan to top their weekend with a barbecue with Michael Carrick.

The Mail looks to another wedding

You wed it well: Rod and Penny finally marry

He's not exactly known as a shrinking violet, but when Rod Stewart made Penny Lancaster his third wife yesterday he chose to keep it intimate and romantic.
While in the past the veteran rocker might have opted for a more ostentatious occasion, he instead picked a 17th Century villa in which to say "I do" with just Penny's parents on hand to witness the occasion.

It leads though with

Schools to select pupils by lottery

Plans to use a computer lottery to allocate millions of school places have rebounded humiliatingly on Ministers - and sparked a stampede to private education.
Under a controversial new Admissions Code, places at popular State schools will be awarded at random, without regard to whether a child lives nearby.

The paper adds

It means that children in middle-class areas will no longer gain automatic entry to a local school, but could instead find themselves being bussed to a failing or even notorious school across town.

According to the Times

Girls to get sex virus vaccine

GIRLS aged 12 are to be vaccinated against a sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer under plans to be approved this week by a government committee.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation is expected to recommend that all girls should be given the jab in the first year of secondary school to protect them against the human papilloma virus (HPV).
The committee, which comprises senior health specialists, is also expected to recommend a catchup campaign to vaccinate all girls aged 12-16.

The News of the World finds more scandal on Itv's talent show

DRAG QUEENS the Kit Kat Dolls were hurriedly booted off Britain's Got Talent show — after the News of the World discovered three of them were selling SEX.
The nine-strong troupe of gender benders — who have wowed judge Simon Cowell and millions of voting viewers over the past week — were on course to win the top £100,000 prize and a spot at the Royal Variety Performance.
But that went up the spout on Friday night when transvestite lead singer Vanilla Lush — whose hooker name is Cindy — invited our reporter to visit him for a sordid SEX SESSION in his room at the hotel where the ITV show's contestants are staying.

The Sunday Express claims on its front page that

DIVORCE NO 2 FOR ANNE the paper says


According to the Observer

Cameron: I'll steal Brown's ground now

David Cameron today launches an audacious bid to dislodge Gordon Brown as the champion of progressive politics in Britain when he declares that the Tories are best placed to tackle poverty and to protect the environment. In an attempt to reassert his authority after a bruising Tory row over grammar schools, Cameron has stolen one of the Chancellor's favourite words to declare that Britain's 'progressives' should now feel more at home with the Conservatives.

Hold your nerve, Cameron to urge says the Telegraph

Mr Cameron will address Tory MPs and election candidates at Westminster tomorrow before heading to south London to make a keynote speech on the need for the Tories to "hold our nerve" after the internal row over grammar schools.
His immediate task is to restore morale in the wake of the education fiasco - which lasted several weeks and ended with Tony Blair mocking him last Wednesday at Prime Minister's Questions in the Commons while Tory MPs looked silently on.

The papers have some stories from across the Atlantic

Anti-Hillary dirty tricks war hots up reports the Observer

She's ahead in the polls and on course to become the Democrats' presidential candidate for 2008. So it is no surprise that a right-wing smear campaign is gathering speed to derail Senator Hillary Clinton's bid for the White House. Conservative groups and political figures are planning a film, books and a concerted media campaign to demonise Clinton, who is already one of the most polarising figures in American politics.
Top of the list of projects is a planned movie, being filmed by veteran Republican operator David Bossie. Bossie is raising money for the film through his conservative group Citizens United, which is appealing for video footage, stories about Clinton and money. It plans a release by the end of the year, just as the first primary elections are held in New Hampshire. Bossie is being helped in the project by Dick Morris, a former top Clinton aide who has become a leading Clinton critic.

The Telegraph reporting that

Powell ready to jump on Obama bandwagon

Last week, Mr Powell revealed that he has been advising the senator from Illinois on foreign policy - provoking a flurry of speculation about the plans and ambitions of both men.
Mr Powell, 70, who left office in January 2005 under a cloud left by the war in Iraq, has served three Republican presidents, but made clear that he is considering backing a Democrat to succeed his former boss, George W Bush.

Darling, we can’t both run the party reports the Times from France

AN electoral drubbing today for shipwrecked French Socialists is likely to unleash an unusually bitter struggle for power in which Segolene Royal, the failed presidential contender, will try to wrest control of the party from the father of her four children.
Francois Hollande, Royal’s common-law spouse, seemed in no hurry to abandon his post as party leader but anger at recent humiliations, including a landslide victory expected in today’s parliamentary elections for President Nicolas Sarkozy’s conservative party, was increasing pressure on the secretary-general to step down.

Finally The Telegraph catches up with the designers of that controversial logo

'It doesn't ask to be liked' admits logo creator

The men behind the widely criticised 2012 Olympics logo have defended their "raw" design and said that creating something people would love was not their top priority.Speaking for the first time since the controversial design was unveiled, Patrick Cox and Brian Boylan said they were proud of the design and even pleased about some of the criticism it attracted.