Despite the prevailing economic doldrums, one business is booming in Europe: the language sector. “This sector, which includes translation and interpreting, organising multilingual conferences and language teaching, boasts the highest growth rate in Europe,” reports Evenimentul Zilei. In 2008, according to a European Commission report due to come out in a few days, the language sector turned over €8.4 billion, and a 10% increase is in the cards for next year. “We expect to see turnover double by 2015,” says the Brussels report. The Romanian press has homed in on the European language sector because the post of EU commissioner for multilingualism, created and entrusted to Leonard Orban, a Romanian national, in 2007, has often been written off as a sinecure.
The leader of Greece’s leftist alliance SYRIZA is the new bright hope of Greek politics. Steering a course between pragmatism and the rhetoric of class warfare, he has unsettled Berlin, and not just those who back Angela Merkel's austerity policies. 
Europe’s economic woes have forced us to try to understand the secret Olympian world of global finance. But now that we pay more attention to bond yields and stability mechanisms, isn’t it clear that the experts up on their lofty peaks don’t know what’s going on either? 
This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is hosted by Azerbaijan, a country that is far from being a model democracy. An Estonian journalist takes a critical look at the deferential treatment enjoyed by the regime in Baku.