He is the inventor of the famous slogan “poor but sexy” for Berlin and has just been elected mayor of the capital for the third time. Today, “[Klaus] Wowereit may be the one to bring down Merkel,” enthuses the Financial Times Deutschland, hoping that Wowereit, buoyed by his success, might want to consider stepping up as the SPD's candidate for the Chancellery. Often underestimated, tagged as a provincial and a party animal, Wowereit “has pulled off what many in the SPD cannot lay any claim to: he knows how to run an election campaign – and to win it. And this in a German state beset by financial worries, social tensions and traffic chaos.” The results of the vote in Berlin on September 18 have left the Social Democrats still holding onto City Hall. The Greens also put in a good showing (17.6 percent) while the Pirate Party has made a dramatic entrance (with almost nine percent) into the municipal assembly. The losers are the two coalition parties of Angela Merkel, the Christian Democrats and Liberals, as well as Die Linke (the Left Party), the party born from the rubble of the single party of the former East Germany.
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.