"IMF, Europe on trial", headlines La Stampa. "The Fund's annual assembly opens today [September 23] with the EU in the dock", after markets crashed as latest growth estimates reveal that the ongoing debt crisis could drag the global economy back into recession. IMF director Christine Lagarde has urged Eurozone countries to "immediately enforce the agreements of the July 21 summit, because the time factor is crucial", while US treasury secretary Tim Geithner warned that "preventing a default of Greece is more important than sustaining European growth". "The situation can be described in one word: panic", writes economist MarioDeaglio in the Turin daily. "None of the policies adopted since 2009 on both shores of the Atlantic have worked. [...] The one thing citizens from crisis-hit countries should ask their leaders is to break free from the anonymous tyranny of global markets", forcing banks to separate "speculative circuits from ordinary credit".
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.