Italy weeps, Northern League celebrates
“Azzuri: defeat and shame”, leads Corriere della Sera. After the shock elimination of 2006 Berlin finalists France, World Cup holders Italy have crashed out of the tournament without winning a single match. The Italian press is far from amused about the worst ever result in Italy’s illustrious World Cup history, calling the players a bunch of “jelly-legged millionaires”. The 24 June 3-2 defeat to Slovakia has put wind in the sails of the regionalist Northern League, however, which despises this symbol of national unity. Minister Roberto Calderoli of the xenophobic party blames the defeats on an “insane sports policy” that has led to teams like Inter Milan winning the Champions league with an exclusively foreign line-up. “Now we should make our teams employ only Italian players”, he argues.
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.