They are demanding higher and higher prices, and now they are training to kill us. Customers of the Czech Republic's main power company ČEZ have expressed concern in the wake of revelations that meter readers, who track down illegal connections to the grid, are now being trained in the art of war. "ČEZ and death on video," reads the headline on the Mladá Fronta DNES front-page report, which explains that two videos have now been included as evidence in an ongoing court case involving "electricity pirates," who misappropriated power from the national grid. In the first video, which shows training sessions of the "ČEZ army," electricians learn how to target an enemy's head with a revolver, how to hood and undress a prisoner, and how to use explosives. The second is a hidden camera report that inadvertently documents the death of an electricity pirate, who commits suicide in his garage when ČEZ commandos arrive at his home. "A dozen ČEZ ‘commandos’ have been convicted" of blackmail, and risk being sentenced to up to 12 years in prison, notes the Prague daily, which adds that they have the support of their company.
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.