Both the Guardian and the Independent lead with the situation in the Gaza strip

Israel defiant as Gaza toll rises says the former

Israel was facing widespread international condemnation yesterday for its onslaught in Gaza, as the UN and EU demanded an end to a "disproportionate" response to Palestinian rocket attacks, which were also denounced. Israel's prime minister, Ehud Olmert, rejected the criticism and vowed to press on with the offensive, which has claimed an estimated 100 Palestinian lives in the past five days.
Early today, after clashing with militants and making arrests yesterday, Israel moved more troops into northern Gaza and five Hamas militants were killed in nine airstrikes.

Day of grief and defiance says the Independent

Ehud Olmert, the Israeli Prime Minister, rejected international calls yesterday to end the "excessive" and "disproportionate" military operation in Gaza which has claimed the lives of 101 Palestinians – including many children and other civilians –since Wednesday.




And foreign affairs of another sort are also well covered in the papers

Medvedev vows to emulate Putin after election landslide says the Telegraph

With almost all ballots now counted, Mr Medvedev, Mr Putin's hand-picked successor, has won 70.2 percent of the vote, well ahead of the three unelectable misfits that the Kremlin had allowed to challenge him for the sake of appearances.As the scale of the victory became clear Mr Putin paraded his protégé in Red Square. The two men bounded on to a makeshift stage like a pair of ageing rock stars.
Mr Medvedev, dressed in a pair of tight jeans and an even tighter black leather jacket, its collar turned up, addressed his fans first and promised to follow his mentor's philosophy

More than 60 million vote for a new President - but was this democracy asks the Times

Mr Medvedev won a runaway victory in a contest carefully stage-managed by the Kremlin and in which he faced no serious opposition. Preliminary results showed him winning almost 65 per cent of the vote, with the Communist, Gennadi Zyuganov, trailing in second with 19.8 per cent.
Mr Zyuganov condemned the election as “cynical” and said that it had been marred by “mass falsification” of results. Vladimir Zhirinovsky, an anti-Western nationalist, won nearly 13 per cent, while the little-known Andrei Bogdanov of the Democratic Party got just 1.5 per cent

The paper leads with

Hard-up Labour in fight to raise funds

Labour has resumed a secret courtship of influential donors before new funding rules are introduced to cover the party from future sleaze allegations, The Times has learnt.
Labour fears being left behind by the Tories in building up their war chest to fund the next general election. Labour, now £20 million in debt, generated only £580,000 from individual donors in the last quarter of last year, while Tory fundraisers brought in £9.8 million over the same period.

The Telegraph reports that

More than 133,000 of the 152,000 people who responded in a series of mini-referendums backed a national vote on the Lisbon Treaty, which would transfer more of Britain's sovereignty to Brussels.The results intensify the pressure on Labour and Liberal Democrat MPs - particularly those with slender majorities - to defy the leadership of their parties and back a Tory bid to secure a referendum in a Commons vote this week

Ministers slam EU vote as a 'gimmick' says the Mirror

A vote which claims to show 88 per cent backing for a referendum on Europe was last night dismissed as a "gimmick".
I Want A Referendum leaders said their postal ballot sent a "clear message" of public support to put the Lisbon Treaty to a vote ahead of Wednesday's Commons debate.

The Independent meanwhile reports that

Increase childcare funding to tackle poverty, Brown told

Gordon Brown will be warned today that he risks missing his target of halving poverty unless there is a massive increase in spending on child care for working families.
The warning comes in a report from the Commons Select Committee on Work and Pensions which found that the £1bn pumped into supporting families through tax credits in Gordon Brown's last Budget has failed to reduce the problem of child poverty.


According to the Mail

£100 from the State if you split up:

Three out of four ordinary families would be better off living apart than sharing a home under Labour's benefits system.
Tax credits and benefits are increasingly skewed towards single mothers, a study has shown.
A typical couple on a low or middle income would be £69 a week better off if they lived apart.

The Guardian reports that

Jersey abuse team is told that one attack occurred late last year

Police investigating child abuse on Jersey have been scrutinising allegations of assaults from as recently as the last few months, it emerged yesterday as the first pictures were released of the care home cellar where officers have been searching for human remains.
While many of the crimes being examined date back to the early 1960s, others took place in recent years and one was allegedly committed a few weeks before Christmas.

Council leaders attack 24-hour drinking laws reports the Telegraph

The introduction of 24-hour drinking laws has been a catastrophic "mistake" which has turned Britain's town centres into no-go areas during the evening for everyone except young drunks, council leaders say today.The controversial reforms have failed to introduce a continental café-style culture to Britain's streets and have instead simply fuelled increased levels of late-night drunken violence.
The withering assessment has been issued by the Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils in England and Wales, in its official submission to the Government's review of the new licensing laws.

The Mirror carries an exclusive

Gordon Brown interview: Any shop twice selling alcohol to U18s should lose its licence

Gordon Brown promised to strip shopkeepers of their licence if they are twice caught flogging youngsters beer.
He ordered a cheap booze crackdown and pledged health ads. The PM said: "Binge drinking is unacceptable."
The binge-drinking epidemic sweeping Britain has turned towns into no-go areas as boozed-up teens bring fear to our once-peaceful streets.


The Independent says

Prisoner seriously assaulted every 45 minutes in Britain

One serious attack takes place every 45 minutes in the overcrowded jails of England and Wales as prison staff struggle to cope with soaring levels of violence. Ministry of Justice figures reveal the number of assaults on prisoners by cellmates have rocketed from 1,790 in 1996 to 11,826 last year, a rise of 561 per cent in just over a decade.


Meanwhile the Guardian reports on

Officials warn of terrorist links to prison gangs

The growing number of terrorist prisoners are forging connections with the existing gangs inside Britain's high security jails to the alarm of senior Prison Service managers, according to internal Ministry of Justice documents.
They say there is "an urgent requirement" to understand the impact of the number of terrorist prisoners in high security prisons: "As it stands, there is no intervention available to us to counter terrorist behaviour or to counter the threat of radicalisation. The impact of terrorists on prison regimes in general can be particularly disruptive."

TORIES PLAN EXTRA 5,000 JAIL PLACES reports the Express

The Express' front page focuses on the energy companies

Conservative leader David Cameron is setting out plans to build 5,000 additional jail places in a radical shake-up of the prison system.
Under the Tory plans, to be set out in a "green paper", the additional capacity will be used to end the system of automatic release for prisoners after they have completed half the jail term handed down in court.

NOW GIVE BACK OUR FUEL CASH

MILLIONS of householders could benefit from a payback scheme targeting the massive profits of gas and electricity companies.
They would receive help with their fuel bills after years of spiralling prices and ever-increasing profits for the power giants, it emerged last night.

Prince Harry has vanished from the front of the papers apart from the Sun which reports his

£11 rise

WARRIOR Prince Harry will be rewarded for his heroics in Afghanistan with promotion — and a pay rise worth £11 a day.
Harry, 23, will be made a full Lieutenant after the success of his first combat mission. His salary goes from £20,173 to £24,247.
The extra £11 a day is not quite enough to buy a potent cocktail at Harry’s favourite London nightspot, Mahiki, where The Zombie — a blend of rum and grapefruit — costs £14. but adding

the prince, who has a private fortune of more than £8million, is unlikely to be worried about the cash


Prince's war could be over, say military chiefs reports the Guardian

Defence chiefs yesterday ruled out using Prince Harry in impending military operations in Afghanistan, frustrating his hopes of returning to frontline duties. It is possible that the third in line to the throne will never go back to the country.
Despite expressions of regret that his deployment on the frontline in Helmand province was revealed by foreign media after he had been fighting there for 10 weeks, many defence officials were surprised it remained a secret for so long

Iraq is a happier place reports the Independent

In contrast to President George Bush's furtive visits to US military bases in Iraq, Mr Ahmadinejad's delegation seemed to take pleasure in pre-announcing the two-day visit, landing at Baghdad airport in daylight and driving by road to the Green Zone.


Iraq rolls out red carpet for Ahmadinejad visit says the Guardian

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, pledged a new chapter in relations with Iraq yesterday as he ignored the huge US military presence in the country and arrived to a red-carpet welcome in Baghdad on the first visit of its kind since the 1979 Islamic revolution

Most of the papers report

Chavez moves his tanks to border as regional war looms

President Hugo Chávez yesterday placed Venezuela on a war footing, sending thousands of troops and tanks to the border with Colombia after its neighbour killed a top rebel leader inside Ecuadorean territory.
“Mr. Defense Minister, move me 10 battalions to the border with Colombia immediately - tank battalions,” Mr Chávez boomed on his weekly television programme, Aló Presidente. He also placed the Venezuelan Air Force on standby for action.

The Mail reports the latest on its bag campaign

eco-friendly Prince Charles teams up with supermarket chain to wage war on the bags

The Prince of Wales is to launch his own campaign to persuade shoppers to turn away from plastic carrier bags.
Charles, who has received plaudits for his work highlighting green issues, believes they are a damaging by-product of the throwaway society which are choking the environment.
As part of the initiative, the prince is linking up with the Booths supermarket chain to highlight the issue next month.