Local councillor, a dangerous profession
"Hate mail, anonymous phone calls, and in some cases assaults:" in the Netherlands, a survey conducted by the Dutch daily Trouw, which polled 3,373 of the country's 10,000 councillors, reveals that "30% of them have been threatened or physically attacked." In most cases, threats are linked to political decisions that have angered their assailants. With two days to run before local elections, the daily notes that an outraged constituent's "bark is not always worse than his bite." The Green party leader in the town of Wassenaar was badly beaten shortly after he received verbal threats. Local police had told him not to worry. Trouw reports that "75% of councillors who are threatened do not file complaints." They simply ignore the intimidation and get on with their work. As one liberal councillor remarks: "Politics is no game for cowards."
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.