"Waiting for Merkel: why Germany doesn’t want to lead" reads the front cover of Newsweek. The American weekly says the current crisis in Europe "cries out for serious leadership" and examines why German Chancellor Angela Merkel is reluctant to step into the power vacuum. "All eyes" are on Merkel, who is seen as a consensus builder and also heads the continent’s biggest and richest economy. But neither Merkel or Germany are in "much of a mood to lead." Since reunification the country has turned into a "sated and inward-looking power" and Merkel only became Germany’s most popular leader since World War II by pledging to avoid reform. However, Germany is dependent on euro zone neighbours for 44 per cent of its exports and has an ageing and shrinking workforce. So for the country to do well in the 21st century, it will "require the vision to overcome powerful political and cultural forces fixated more than in most other countries on the status quo at home and abroad.
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.