Lukashenko cracks down on Poles
“The hunt for the Union of Poles in Belarus (UPB) has peaked, and it’s time for Poland to respond,” writes Warsaw daily Gazeta Wyborcza, referring to the rapidly intensifying conflict between Minsk and Warsaw. Two days after a “manly talk” between both countries’ foreign ministers, authorities in Belarus detained more than 40 members of the banned UPB. Earlier, police seized the Polish House, a cultural centre, in Ivyanets. “The UPB, the biggest non-political NGO in Belarus, is at the vanguard of the ‘terrible disease’ that is democracy for the Belarusian regime,” the liberal daily insists, urging the Polish government to take harsh steps against Alexander Lukashenko’s government. “Let’s tell Lukashenko: Enough!” runs a Gazeta editorial, calling on the EU to threaten Belarus with sanctions if it does not stop persecution of the Polish minority. “Like all regimes, Belarus only understands brute force,” the daily believes.
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.