The British paper The Guardian is continuing its exposure of the spying scandal rocking Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation media empire in the UK. Today’s front page reveals some of the famous individuals that the Murdoch-owned tabloid press was spying on: the manager of Manchester United, Alex Ferguson and the former Newscastle United manager Alan Shearer.The left-leaning paper gives over it’s front page and every page until p.7 to this story – they’re gleefully bashing their rivals. A photo inside shows the former editor of the Sun Rebekah Wade and the News of the World, Andy Coulson. He is now the Tory Party leader’s Director of Communications. Coulson’s knowledge of the systemic phone tapping and use of private investigators remains unclear. However he has said in the past, “We talk about our stories in great detail prior to publication. One private investigator who worked for the newspaper until he was jailed for phone hacking in 2007 has told friends that the paper’s exposé of Beckham’s alleged affair with Rebecca Loos stemmed from him hacking into voicemail accounts.A reporter for the newspaper has said the culture in the newsroom was “no questions asked”.

In the Italian press, Carla Bruni is being harangued by Il Giornale, a newspaper run by Silvio Berlusconi’s brother. She didn’t take part in a tour of l’Aquila with the other first ladies saying she would prefer to visit the town with the people who have suffered themselves. “What, as if Michelle Obama and Sarah Brown rather than being with people who suffered were parachuted into a room full of exotic dancers?” quips the paper. The article goes on to say that Carla Bruni is pretentious and irritating and acts as if she were the most famous person at the G8. Damningly, it claims that in Italy “she would have ended up on a reality television show but in France she has become First Lady.”

The New York Times reports that - very unusually - there has been a bout of speculation in the Egyptian press about the health of the country’s President Hosni Mubarak and who will succeed him – he has led the country for 28 years. There has been a crackdown on the increasingly popular Muslim Brotherhood in the country. They are the largest opposition force. The suspicion is that the government is trying to neutralise the Brotherhood in order to smooth over a Mubarak succession. The President’s younger son Gamal and the chief of Military intelliçgence are being mentioned. Much of this discussion has been sparked by Mubarak’s appearance alongside Obama during his Middle East trip. Two weeks earlier his 12 year old grandson died and Mubarak was devastated. He apparently doted on the boy. He cancelled a scheduled trip to Washington. He only resurfaced when Obama arrived himself in Egypt but did not even go to the airport to meet him. At 81 his appearance was clearly quite poorly and weak.

“Find an odd place and lie face down – is this the most pointless internet craze yet?” reads the title in the Daily Mail. The aim of this internet fad is to take photos of people lying down in as public a space as possible with as many participants as possible. The photos speak for themselves. One person commented, “There’s so much misery around these days with the recession and everything. This is an excuse to have a joke and do something silly.”