Express exposes Van Rompuy as “clown”
In the fertile imagination of Britain’s tabloid press, the EU is an ever-burgeoning Death Star casting a shadow over every true born Englishman’s right to drink tea and love his Queen. The post Lisbon period has seen in particular a surge of florid headlines from the Daily Express, fulminating daily over once-Great Britain’s loss of sovereignty to Brussels bureaucrats with un-natural foreign names. All may not be lost, however, with today’s front page revelation that the hot tip for the job as first Lord Vadar of Europe, Belgium’s Herman Van Rompuy, is “a clown”, and this by his own sister’s admission. Van Rompuy’s sibling is of a rival poltical party and “helped to produce a poster showing her brother posing as a clown during a recent election,” the daily reports. “The image showed Mr Van Rompuy sporting a red nose and a clown’s hat.” Nigel Farage of eurosceptic Ukip declared “The list of famous Belgians will not be extended by his appointment.”
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.