Field of Dreams. A boy in the Polish village of Lisewo prepares to fling a soccer ball. Poland and Ukraine are hosting the European soccer championships, a competition among the continent's best national teams that is held every four years.
After the Election, the Dictatorship?
1 | EGYPT
As preliminary results of Egypt's presidential runoff trickled out, Mohamed Morsy, an Islamist leader of the once banned Muslim Brotherhood, declared victory over Ahmed Shafik, a former Prime Minister who served under ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak. Morsy reportedly garnered 52% of the vote. But the success of the Arab nation's first democratic presidential elections was overshadowed--indeed, endangered--by the military's apparent efforts to maintain its grasp on power. On June 14, in a move that reversed the fledgling democracy's hard-won gains, the country's Supreme Constitutional Court, appointed by Mubarak, dissolved the popularly elected Islamist-led Parliament. And shortly after the presidential vote last week, the ruling military council issued a declaration substantially diminishing the authority of the new President. Tens of thousands of Egyptians thronged Cairo's Tahrir Square to protest the actions of the military, which had promised a complete transition to civilian rule. Adding to the country's political chaos and uncertainty, reports emerged that the 84-year-old Mubarak, who is serving a life sentence for his role in the killing of demonstrators during the revolution last year, is critically ill, with some sources describing him as "clinically dead."
Reprieve Without Resolution
2 | GREECE
The center-right New Democracy party won a narrow victory in legislative elections, but its 129 parliamentary seats are not enough to rule without a coalition. The pro--European Union party beat out the Coalition of the Radical Left, which was deeply critical of austerity measures mandated by the E.U. Characterized as a referendum on Greece's membership in the E.U. by candidates and international observers alike, the election provides only temporary relief from worries that Greece might renege on its bailout deal.
LESSONS OF THE VOTE
The euro is safe for now. Greece's relatively small economy is not crucial to the success of the E.U., but experts warned that its exit could have triggered a large-scale euro-zone breakup
Despite economic stagnation and a debt crisis, the Greek government works: the elections went smoothly, the losing candidates admitted defeat, and the winners moved to build a ruling coalition
Market gains in the wake of New Democracy's victory were largely offset within two days, underscoring the fact that a fix to the European crisis will not be found in state-by-state solutions
U.K.
'It represents the archetypal "turd on the plaza."'
Oliver Wainwright, British architecture critic, lambasting the new ArcelorMittal Orbit structure at Olympic Park in London
Prodding The Russians On Assad
3 | SYRIA