“Currencies have become new weapons,” headlines Dziennik Gazeta Prawna after Saturday’s stormy meeting of International Monetary Fund (IMF) financial ministers in Washington. Commenting on the US-China spat regarding the undervalued Chinese yuan, Dominique Strauss-Kahn –the IMF’s managing director- warned that “economic growth could be twice as slow while rich countries may face recession unless agreement is quickly reached.” The US has accused China of “destroying workplaces in America” and demanded a 1/3 increase in the yuan’s value. But Beijing fired back insisting that international financial markets remain unstable due to the US practice of “printing empty money.” The Warsaw daily argues that “spiralling world currency war, which Brussels still observes from the sidelines, could annihilate the anaemic economic growth recorded in the US and EU."
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.