“European parliament rewards Fariñas,” headlines El País. After a behind-closed-doors meeting in Strasbourg, 21 October, the leaders of the EP’s political groups agreed to award the 2010 Sakharov Prize, worth €50,000, to Cuban dissident Guillermo Farinas who has spent the last 11 and a half years in jail, and who has gone on hunger strike more than twenty times against the Castro regime. Announcing the prize to parliament, Parliament President Jerzy Buzek declared, "Farinas is willing to sacrifice his health and life to bring about change in Cuba.” With the EPP having backed Fariñas’ candidacy, the Madrid daily notes that the “applause coming from the centre-right in the parliament contrasted with silence from the left, which then became verbal as talk broke out of the "disrepute" into which Parliament had fallen.” Complained one Spanish socialist, “It was decided to award the prize to a cause already known and being resolved." This is the third time in ten years the prize for Freedom of Thought has been awarded to a Cuban dissident.
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.