Stefan Theil

Renate Künast is on the verge of becoming Berlin's first Green mayor.

Far-right European politicians find love—and common cause—in Israel.

"For every tax receipt that's not collected," goes a joke making the rounds in Athens these days, "the Germans will shoot 10 hostages."

The Swiss faced one of the globe's worst financial-sector blowups. Now they're setting the gold standard for how to regulate their banks.

Call it Greece's China moment. Like an economy run into the ground by decades of socialism, as China's was before the country began reforms in 1978, Greece's political and economic order had failed.

"No interest until 2014," read the massive red sign outside Big's Furniture in Henderson, Nev. It beckoned Diane Lewis to the store's year-end liquidation sale. "I had to pull in," she said as her sons frolicked on mattresses nearby.

After its $140 billion EU and IMF bailout in May, Greece has found another big spender: China, which has dramatically boosted investments in the country. Recent agreements include $5 billion to upgrade Greece's merchant marine, a 35-year deal to lease and operate the country's main port, and the building of a logistics terminal to connect with southeastern Europe.

You may have not noticed, but we are in the middle of the third major bailout of U.S. and European banks and their investors in as many years.

Even as Washington and Beijing slug it out over trade deficits and exchange rates, Europe has quietly overtaken America as China's No. 1 trade partner. Not only did Chinese trade with the EU soar to $306 billion through July of this year—compared with $243 billion of trade with the U.S.—China has also become far more dependent on Europe for importing the technology and infrastructure that underpin its breakneck development.

Decades after such figures appeared elsewhere in Europe, Germany finally has produced its own high-profile star of the anti-immigrant right. But only for about a week. Thilo Sarrazin, a former Social Democratic politician, set off the fiercest storm of public outrage in recent memory with his new book, "Germany Abolishes Itself," in which he lays bare the failures of German education, migration, and welfare policies.

Despite stereotypes of entrepreneurs as fresh-faced youngsters, new research has found that older workers are more likely to innovate than their under-35 counterparts.

Despite stereotypes of entrepreneurs as fresh-faced youngsters, new research has found that older workers are more likely to innovate than their under-35 counterparts.

The best countries keep public and private sector graft in check.

Economists used to ridicule the idea of "decoupling"—that the economies of China and other emerging powers could move independently of developments in the West. The recession refuted them. Now markets are starting to recouple again—except the other way around: China has turned into a locomotive for Western growth.

Almost three years after the first tremors of the financial crisis, Europe is finally running "stress tests" on its banks. The results, due this week, are supposed to restore the confidence of weary investors by declaring which financial institutions are reliable enough to survive market shocks.

Just three years ago the politics of global warming was enjoying its golden moment. Now, almost everywhere, green politics has fallen from its lofty heights.

On Sunday, Poles voted for a new president in an election noted less for its outcome than for its tragic circumstance—the emergency vote followed the April 10 plane crash that killed the previous president and his wife along with the head of the Polish central bank, the armed forces chief of staff, and 84 other high-ranking Polish officials.

Blaming foreign speculators for the continent's troubles may be a popular sport in Paris and Berlin, but most of those problems are entirely homegrown. Europe's dirty secret is that its banking sector is sicker than Wall Street.

Blame economic worries, another freezing winter, or the cascade of scandals emerging from the world's leading climate-research body. But concern over global warming has cooled down dramatically. In über-green Germany, only 42 percent of citizens worry about global warming now, down from 62 percent in 2006.

Scenarios for Europe's doom are multiplying after last week's trillion-dollar emergency bailout of Greece and other over-indebted southern European countries by fellow European Union members and the International Monetary Fund.

Europe's gargantuan bond and bank bailout this weekend is nothing but "morphine to stabilize the patient," according to the International Monetary Fund's Director for Europe, Mark Belka.

Europe stood at the precipice of another financial crisis last week as Greece, for all intents and purposes, went bankrupt. The interest rate on Greek bonds briefly shot up to an eye-popping 38 percent—the result of a market frozen by investors' worries about a default.

Europe stood at the precipice of another financial crisis last week as Greece, for all intents and purposes, went bankrupt. The interest rate on Greek bonds briefly shot up to an eye-popping 38 percent--the result of a market frozen by investors' worries about a default.

When Greece first appeared to be on the brink of default, analysts looked for signs of a euro-zone breakup, as stronger countries like Germany balked on funneling their taxpayer euros to rescue dissolute southern economies.

Iceland's volcano may have disrupted global air traffic, but Europe's upgraded high-speed railroads kept the continent moving.

Forget the conventional wisdom. European firms are faster-growing, more profitable, and better at globalization than their American rivals.

Europe's attack on capitalism.

Europe needs a leader, but the likely candidate doesn't want the job.

Greece holds the record for the developed world's most crooked economy: with fully one quarter of its GDP earned off the books in illegal construction and unreported employment, Greece could easily have avoided its debt crisis had it found a way to tax even half of that income.

Europe's public debt crisis has lead to clamorous predictions of the euro zone's imminent breakup. With Greece already threatened by government default, last week attention shifted to Spain, a much larger economy stuck in a downward spiral of 20 percent unemployment, ongoing recession, and a public deficit that's soared past 11 percent of GDP.