Such accounts underestimate the country. Its culture of remembrance creates a unique sense of historical responsibility and a stark wariness of demagoguery. Its political, media and wider civic life prioritise moderation and consensus: a new study by the Bertelsmann foundation shows that fully 80% of Germans consider themselves “centrist”, compared with 67% of Brits and 51% of French citizens. Germany’s economy is booming; the post-industrial grimness of swathes of Britain, France and America simply does not exist on that scale here. A lower proportion of Germans feel socially insecure than at any point since reunification

So it is with caution that I predict that the country’s federal politics will take a rightward turn at the election on September 24th. Mrs Merkel will be the next German chancellor. The country’s admirably cautious and reflective relationship with its identity and history will live on. It will continue to be a beacon of moderation and stability, the eye of the West’s nativist storm.

But I make the prediction nonetheless. The AfD is doing better than many expected. Its support spiked last year but had fallen again by the time of the party’s chaotic, rightwards-lurching conference in April. When, back then, I concluded that it was too early to write the AfD off, that was still a contentious prediction. But since the spring it has risen from around 7-9% in polls to the 8-12% range. Four of Germany’s six main pollsters have it on track to be the third largest party in the Bundestag. That would shake the political establishment. 

Now Schroder is about to join the board of the Russian oil giant Rosneft, on which the US imposed sanctions this year. It is run by Igor Sechin, a hard-boiled operator said to have strong ties to the security services and to be Putin’s closest ally. Schroder, in other words, is being welcomed into the Kremlin court. The move represents more than jobs for the boys; this very personal axis is supposed to guarantee heightened Russian influence within the EU at a time when Putin is losing faith with the Trump administration.

As for Gazprom, the Russian gas producer, it retains a 34 per cent share in the EU energy market but is facing a hostile European Commission that has made security of supply a priority. Liquefied natural gas from the US, which is just starting to arrive in Poland and The Netherlands, may not displace Russian gas but it will push down Russian prices.

Putin, an admirer of German virtues since his KGB days in Dresden, seems to believe the country can become a special partner after Merkel’s presumed re-election this month and his own re-enthronement next year.

Germany has to show a “determined leadership” of Nato and lead this military alliance of the “West” towards adopting a new strategic concept. This is what the advisers to the German Government and experts in foreign policy are asking for. The context? The reorientation of Germany’s global policy which, following Russia’s recapturing of Crimea, no longer aims exclusively at military interventions throughout the whole world to guarantee strategic or economic interests, but also at fighting “competing conceptual models” of international policy.

It is in the pursuit of this latter objective that the Federal Republic is playing a leading role in establishing Nato’s presence in Eastern Europe — against Russia. In particular, Berlin has the lead role in creating multinational divisions, which are destined to complete the Nato troops stationed in the Baltic States and Poland and aims at being the “spear head” of the Alliance. As the Stiftung für Wissenschaft und Politik (the “Foundation for Science and Politics” referred to herein as SWP) stresses, these can also be sent by the EU at any time and participate in these operations.

It is for this reason that the SWP considers that their “importance and scope stretches beyond the Alliance”.

It comes just hours after the NHC had upgraded Maria to an "extremely dangerous" category 4 hurricane. The NHC latest public advisory issued at 8pm EDT announced that Maria had “become a potentially catastrophic category 5 hurricane” as the storm narrows in on Dominica with winds of up to 160mph (260kmph).

UPDATE: Hurricane Maria: Storm batters Dominica causing 'severe damage' as nation's PM rescued. HURRICANE Maria has made landfall, causing “severe damage” to Dominica as the storm batters the nation with winds of 160mph (260kmph), according to the Trinidad and Tobago weather centre.

He bashed Pyongyang for showing 'its utter contempt for its neighbors and for the entire world community.' 'Nothing inspires more confidence in our friends, or strikes more fear in the hearts of our enemies, than the sight of American war planes on the horizon,' Trump declared.

'Our aviators have given America total dominance of the air and space no matter where we fly. Now when our enemies hear the F-35's engines, when they're roaring overhead, their souls will tremble and they will know the day of reckoning has arrived.'

The warnings came a day after leader Kim Jong Un vowed to continue the weapons programs, saying North Korea is nearing its goal of "equilibrium" in military force with the United States. They also came as world leaders begin arriving in New York for the annual meeting of the UN General Assembly this week, where North Korea will be high on the agenda.

Trump tweeted Sunday that he and South Korean President Moon Jae-in discussed North Korea during their latest telephone conversation on Saturday. Trump spoke with Moon from his New Jersey golf club, where aides said he was spending the weekend preparing for his UN debut.

US National Security Adviser HR McMaster said Kim is "going to have to give up his nuclear weapons because the president has said he's not going to tolerate this regime threatening the United States and our citizens with a nuclear weapon." Asked if that meant Trump would launch a military strike, McMaster said "he's been very clear about that, that all options are on the table."

His fantasy of a federalist European Union with all 27 members remaining after Britain leaves embracing the euro and opening borders per the Schengen agreement was so out of step with reality and with the mood in EU countries that he seemed to be on a different planet. In fact, the German daily Die Welt thought the idea of a Bulgaria or a Romania joining the euro was so absurd that one had to ask “on what distant star the spaceship EU under its Captain Juncker has spent the last few years.”

Sahra Wagenknecht, a leader of the Left party in Germany — who takes advantage of her party’s marginal status to speak more pointedly than mainstream politicians — said “Mr Juncker seems to have taken leave of his senses. The euro is already causing enough damage to the countries that have it, without extending it to the rest of the EU," she said.

Even the liberal Guardian, which has been steadfastly pro-Europe, said “Juncker’s federalist vision for the EU is far from reality.” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte described Juncker as a “romantic,” the paper reported, and suggested that people with visions see an eye doctor.

"Mrs Merkel single-handedly opened the borders - we can't ever forget that," he told AFP in the coastal town of Greifswald. "She allowed one million unregistered and unchecked people into the country and that is absolutely unacceptable." Around 890,000 mainly Muslim asylum seekers arrived in 2015 alone in what Holm calls a mistake that changed the course of German, and European, history.

He studiously avoids the kind of fire-breathing rhetoric on Muslims and Germany's wartime guilt that has made the party a pariah among mainstream politicians. "If you have a very critical stance on uncontrolled mass immigration you get stigmatised as a far-right extremist. We have nothing against foreigners as such," he said. "We just need to bring the right ones into the country, the ones we can use," he said, calling Canada and Australia's immigration laws good models.

"We want to remain a sovereign country, not a United States of Europe," he said, blaming a drive for greater European integration pushed by Merkel for tipping the balance for Brexit and alienating many eastern European countries.

When confronting a case with some form of legal obstacle in the way, the former 7th Circuit Court of Appeals judge said he would look to circumvent whatever prevented him from reaching his desired result. “When you have a Supreme Court case or something similar, they’re often extremely easy to get around,” Posner said.

When judges make law instead of interpreting law in the light of the Constitution, they do not defend us from tyrants, but rather become tyrants themselves. Posner decided to finally retire at age 78 because he had “lost interest” in the cases he arbitrarily decides.

Around 3,000 people in Sweden have already had a chip embedded in their hand in order to access secure areas of buildings. SJ – the first travel company in the world to implement the system is north Europe’s largest train operator. The company initially expects around 200 people to join the program.

Despite Ray dismissing concerns about privacy, when the program was launched some customers complained that their LinkedIn profiles were appearing instead of their train tickets when conductors scanned their biometric chip. “You could use the microchip implant to replace a lot of stuff, your credit cards, the keys to your house, the keys to your car,” Ray told the BBC.

His sentiments echo the tone of an NBC News report last year which asserted the microchipping of children will happen “sooner rather than later” and that Americans will eventually accept the process as something just as normal as the barcode. “It’s not a matter of if it will happen, but when,” electronics expert Stuart Lipoff told the network.

Concerns about the embedded microchip representing the “mark of the beast” mentioned in the Bible have been expressed by many on the Christian right for over two decades. Revelations 13:16-17 talks about every man receiving “a mark in their right hand, or in their forehead,” without which they are not able to “buy or sell”.

“This is just another step in that direction. Many people do not like using US dollars because if the US gets angry at you, they just set enormous pressure on you that can even get you out of business. China, Russia, and other countries understand this, and they are trying to move world trade and world finance away from that,” said Jim Rogers.

As China is the world’s biggest crude buyer, the new contract may allow exporters to avoid US sanctions by trading oil in yuan. Such countries as Russia, Iran, Pakistan, Vietnam, China and many other Asian countries are interested in that, according to the expert.