New political party, same old faces
Its founders call themselves “anti-populist”. Opinion polls expect TOP 09, the new political party led by former Czech Foreign Minister, Karel Schwarzenberg, to win over 11% of the vote in the parliamentary elections scheduled for next spring, which would make it the country’s third largest party, ahead of the Communists. TOP 09 presents itself as a rival to the ODS, the Civic Democratic Party of ex-Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek. “Its strategy is based on implementing the many necessary reforms that the ODS, the main right-wing party, has never been able to push through,” writes Hospodářské Noviny. “TOP 09 has raised great expectations,” the business daily adds. Its popularity can only grow if it remains true to its stated intention of fighting corruption, which it has demonstrated by refusing to bring on board what the news website Aktualne.cz refers to as the ‘black souls’, corrupt politicians with a Communist past.
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.