Headlining with "Google comes to town," Frankfurter Rundschau reports on the surprise announcement of official authorisation for the American corporation’s "Street View", which will be made available for 20 German cities starting in 2010. Over the last three years, the introduction of the Google technology, which already provides panoramic views of public space in 23 countries worldwide, has been blocked by opposition from the government in Berlin and a large section of the German population, which considers it an infringement of personal privacy. In view of this context, the daily reports that the German launch will be subject to "unprecedented" restrictions: among other measures, the government has made available a downloadable form for owners or tenants who wish to prevent Google from publishing photographs of particular buildings, and their immediate environment. The American firm has acknowledged that it has already received several thousand of these forms from opponents of its project.
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.