“Ninety minutes that could change Britain”, headlines The Independent, as the leaders of Britain’s three main political parties lock horns on 15 April in the UK’s first ever live television election debate. While much attention is focused on the battle between PM Gordon Brown of Labour and David Cameron of the Conservatives, the London daily points out that an “unprecedented chance to reach a huge audience” has been handed to Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems currently hold only 63 out of 646 seats at Westminster, but with a recent Times poll putting the Tories only 3 points ahead of Labour at 36%, they could emerge, on 21%, as king-maker if neither of the two main parties comes up with a clear majority. “A hung parliament…bring it on,” runs the London daily’s leader, calling for a reform of the British first-past-the-post* electoral system, which gives the Lib Dems only half the seats they would garner under continental-style proportional representation.
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.