“Berlusconi attack gays”, headlines La Repubblica. Subject to national and international scrutiny after revelations about yet another underage mistress, the Italian PM has landed in even hotter water with one of his trademark jokes: “It’s better to look at cute girls than to be gay”. In the midst of protests from homosexual associations, another escort girl involved in a drug trafficking investigation has told prosecutors she had sex for cash with Berlusconi. She alleges that the premier invited her to a party at his villa where she and other girls were offered drugs and money and had a hydromassage bath with their host. While the PM’s aides deny all of these circumstances, Berlusconi is threatening to tighten his controversial wire-tapping law even further, with offending media subject to closures of up to 30 days.
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.