"IMF anticipates austerity effects and predicts recession and unemployment record for 2012", Público headlines as experts from the European Commission and the IMF – already in Lisbon – fix the terms of the bailout with Portugal’s government. According to their figures, Portugal faces an economic contraction of 1.5% in 2011 and 0.5% in 2012, while unemployment is set to reach 12.4% in 2012. Público adds that Portugal’s economy is set to be the worst performing in the EU in 2012, while Greece and Ireland will already be on the way to recovery. According to the Lisbon daily, the EU and IMF experts’ “biggest preoccupation” will be with reform to employment rules, tenancy agreements, and cutting expenses in the judiciary, noting that Portugal might "pay less for the rescue package than Ireland and Greece".
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.