Diário de Notícias, 24 February 2011
Portugal is under pressure from all sides. One week after Brussels announced that the €500 billion earmarked to finance the European Financial Stability Fund will only be available in 2013 – and interest on national debt reached a new high of 7.5% – Standard & Poor's is to decide this weekend whether to downgrade Portugal’s credit rating, leads Diário Económico. The deterioration of Portugal’s growth prospects, along with its excessive dependence on the European Central Bank are some of the points that worry the agency, the business daily notes. In November, Diário Económico recalls, S&P threatened a downgrade if the country’s growth and deficit figures worsened. It was followed by Moody`s in December.
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.