The Irish Times, 1 July 2010
“Recession is over but dole queues will get longer,” leads the Irish Times. The Dublin daily strikes a dubious note with the release of statistics showing that after two years of shrinkage Irish GDP grew by 2.7% in the first quarter of 2010. However, the daily notes that "by another measure – gross national product (GNP), which excludes earnings of foreign-owned firms based in Ireland – the economy continued to contract, shrinking by a further 0.5%.” Meanwhile, latest unemployment figures released on the same day show that 13.4 per cent of the workforce is signing on.
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.