Romania's stressed out judges to strike
"The government has pushed our judges over the edge," exclaims Cotidianul. Having contracted a €12.95 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund this spring, the Romanian state has to make good on a pledge to cut civil service pay, and the measure has now been extended to include judges' salaries. Leading with the headline, "Say goodbye to the rule of law!" the Bucharest daily is concerned that "the financial crisis will have a negative impact on the administration of justice – judges' pay will soon will soon be on a par with salaries paid to auxiliary staff in government ministries."
In the wake of the axing of their "bonus for work-related stress" in July, "judges are going to lose 23% of their current income," explains the daily. As a mark of protest, the judges plan to restrict their work to international and child-related cases from 1st September. They are also threatening to block preparations for the presidential election, which is scheduled for November.
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.