Dissident republicans the Real IRA exploded a car bomb in front of the British secret service’s (MI5) Northern Ireland HQ on April 12, reports the Belfast Telegraph. The incident occurred only minutes after justice powers were devolved from London to Belfast as part of agreements arising from the Northern Ireland peace process. “A taxi driver was taken hostage in north Belfast and held for two hours before being forced to drive the device to near the MI5 base,” the daily reports, adding that “there were no serious injuries.” The Real IRA, a splinter group from the traditional IRA which lay down its arms in 1997, is opposed to the continued British presence in Northern Ireland. Last year, it shot dead two British soldiers, the first killed in the province since 1997. David Ford, Northern Ireland’s first Justice Minister in almost four decades, was sworn in just after the bombing.
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.