It's not the language that is a problem. It's what you do with it.
Visit the forums of the application and try to find out which module is causing the problems. It is possible you do not need that set of php scripts (module)
Be aware that in the Open Source model there are 'some' newbies submitting their contributions and fixes OR your using an alpha or beta version of code. Theses are not tested in a high load environment. Much of this code will be written for better operations. Fall back to an older version of newsphp and see if it helps.