Yields on 10 year Portuguese bonds crossed the 7% threshold on 9 November, a first since the country joined the euro, writes i. Contradicting the Finance Minister’s recent statement that 7% would lead to an IMF bailout, Economy Minister Vieira da Silva assured parliament that "there is no magic number for which the intervention of international organizations will be considered", notes Diário Económico. The business daily notes that Portugal nervously returns to the markets today to sell off €750-1250 million in debt, with financial experts predicting that the European Central Bank will eventually stop buying up Portuguese debt in order to ease pressure on the crisis stricken country. "The ECB just won’t be able to help on the scale required for 2011," said one expert. "In the first half, Portugal will have to turn around €25 billion in debt. If no investors show up, the ECB wont be able to take on all this value by itself".
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.