German authorities have implemented a partial ban on naked short-selling of certain stocks, leads the Financial Times. The move against “naked shorting” – selling securities such as shares and bonds that are not owned or borrowed – comes “amid heated discussion in Europe of regulatory curbs on speculative trading, which has been widely blamed by politicians for exacerbating the Greek debt crisis,” the London finance daily writes. Coming into effect immediately, the ban will last until the end of March 2011, and applies to eurozone sovereign bonds, credit default swaps, and also shares in 10 leading German financial stocks. Markets took badly to the news, with the euro dropping more than a cent against the dollar, hitting a new four-year low of $1.22. “The ban looks like a piece of raw meat thrown to legislators who labour under the delusion that the eurozone’s debt crisis is all the fault of “speculators” and are eager for revenge,” laments the FT’s Brussels correspondent, Tony Barber.
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.