Vatican says Marx is good dope
Karl Marx, who coined the phrase “Religion is the opium of the people”, may well be spinning in his grave at Highgate cemetery, London, with the news today that the Vatican has endorsed his theories. L’Osservatore Romano, the official Papal newspaper, has, according to the Times, declared “that Marx’s early critiques of capitalism had highlighted the social alienation felt by the large part of humanity that remained excluded, even now, from economic and political decision-making.” Marx, the author of the Communist Manifesto, who died in 1883, joins a burgeoning list of historical figures previously excoriated by the Catholic Church such as Gallileo, Charles Darwin and most recently Oscar Wilde to receive a papal rehabilitation, whether they would have liked it or not. The paper, which is subject to papal approval, goes on to say that Marx’s work remains especially relevant today as man seeks “a new harmony” between his needs and the natural environment. It does, however, note that “nothing has damaged the interests of Marx the philosopher more than Marxism.”
In a time of crisis with high unemployment, young Lithuanians are following in the footsteps of their emigrant ancestors. Tens of thousands have left the country in search of a better life, mainly in the British Isles and Scandinavia. The weekly Veidas reports: 
The new Eurogroup meeting on February 9 is not enough to banish the spectre of a Greek bankruptcy. While Athens may largely be responsible for the crisis, the EU and its partners are not blameless themselves. La Stampa argues that their confused messages and the absence of any strategy have transformed a resolvable problem into an explosive chaos. 
Two camps, two theories, and two visions of France: 18 years after the massacre of 800,000 Tutsis, the precise role played by Paris is still the subject of heated debate, fueled by the findings of successive criminal investigations.