Süddeutsche Zeitung, 16 July 2010
“Relations thaw in Siberia,” reads the Süddeutsche Zeitung headline next to a photo of Angela Merkel and Dmitri Medvedev. Reporting on the 15 July meeting between the German Chancellor and the Russian President in Yekaterinburg, the Munich daily reports that both leaders “appeared to be the best of friends.” Merkel, who gets on better with Medvedev than she does with Putin, has offered to help with Russian modernisation programmes in health care, wind energy and regional transportation. In response,the Russians have generously agreed to purchase 2.2 billion euros worth of trains from Siemens.
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.