President unties the knot on civil union
Portuguese president Aníbal Cavaco Silva has for the second time vetoed a bill to grant cohabiting heterosexual and homosexual couples the same rights as their married counterparts. Público quotes the head of State as saying, “That would be liable to confuse two different realities – which our citizens wish to keep different” and to “turn cohabitation into proto-marriage or second-rate marriage.” What is more, he remarks, “There hasn’t been enough debate over a matter that naturally lends itself to controversy.” And now the current legislature is drawing to a close. The Portuguese will be heading to the polls on 27 September to elect their new parliament, which is then expected to grapple with the issue. Championed by prime minister José Sócrates’ Socialist Party, civil unions will be the central campaign issue in the weeks to come.
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.