According to climatologists quoted by La Repubblica, "terms we used to describe extraordinary downpours on Europe are no longer fit for what is happening today", so we may well have to include the word monsoon in our weather dictionary. Global warming is increasing the temperature and dimension of hot air masses coming from the Sahara. At the western side they collide with cool and damp airstreams from northern atlantic, resulting in heavy rains like those that flooded central Europe, where precipitation rates have already doubled. In the east they meet no opposition, causing heat waves and fires as is currently happening in Russia. "The energy of the system is bound to increase even faster in absence of countermeasures", foresees Repubblica, hoping that recent disasters put pressure on the climate conference of Cancun to produce results.
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.