Knives out for Blair over Iraq
On 29 January, Tony Blair appeared before Lord Chilcot’s Iraq inquiry to explain his reasons for leading his country into the Iraq invasion of 2003. The former British prime-minister still justifies the attack on the grounds that Saddam Hussein, according to British intelligence, possessed weapons of mass-destruction. However, the press increasingly contends that this is untrue. Left-leaning weekly the New Statesman leads the case against Blair with testimony from government experts whose advise Blair ignored in the run-up to the war. “Over the years, numerous revelations – including leaked official memos and minutes – have suggested that Blair, in spite of his repeated denials, signed up not simply to disarmament but to regime change (i.e. the overthrow of Saddam) in Iraq a full year before the invasion”. The paper quotes a senior law-lord who calls on the Iraq inquiry to declare the war illegal, which chimes in with campaigns calling for Blair’s arrest and trial as a war criminal.
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: 
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. 
Agree to new austerity measures or risk being kicked out of the eurozone: that’s the alternative presented to Athens on the day the euro group is meeting. It’s a situation Greek politicians have failed to avoid, regrets To Vima.