As part of their increasingly desperate efforts to prevent a Brexit vote, Eurocrats are trying to maintain a discreet silence about their future plans to give Brussels even greater powers. From outlawing high-energy domestic appliances, such as dishwashers, kettles and hair-dryers, to interfering in the running of our ports, EU officials are keeping schtum about their plans. This reticence, moreover, applies in particular to their controversial plans to announce the formation of a European army as soon as the referendum vote is over.

At a time when the EU is involving itself more in undertaking security operations, such as tackling people-smuggling gangs in the Mediterranean and piracy in Somalia, it clearly makes sense for participating states to work together.

But what makes the proposals set out in the EU’s Global Strategy on Foreign Security Policy – to give the initiative its full title – both dangerous and unworkable is the presumption that Brussels will ultimately control the military assets of member states, rather than member states retaining the authority to decide whether they wish to involve themselves in a particular EU security initiative.

Such a proposition is dangerous because, by establishing its own command structure, the EU is setting itself up as a direct rival to Nato. There are many in Europe, particularly in France, who resent America’s dominant role in the transatlantic alliance, even though it is largely due to American firepower that Europe has enjoyed peace and prosperity since the end of the Second World War.

Certainly, so far as Britain’s interests are concerned, preserving the status quo, whereby Nato is responsible for defending the Western alliance, is by far the best option. And, if the EU insists on setting up a rival army of its own, then the only sensible course of action is to vote to leave.

"We are about to make the biggest political decision of our lives. The Sun today urges everyone to vote LEAVE," the editorial begins. The editorial argues that the UK "must set ourselves free from dictatorial Brussels," and that the country's future would be "far bleaker" if it remained.

'Recapture our democracy'. "Our country has a glorious history," the newspaper goes on to say. "This is our chance to make Britain even greater, to recapture our democracy, to preserve the values and culture we are rightly proud of." The Sun also accused the "Remain" camp of using scare tactics to convince voters to support the EU.

The editorial comes just as a new poll, conducted by YouGov for The Times newspaper, found that 46 percent of the country supported the idea of leaving the EU, compared with 39 percent who were in support of remaining. A separate poll in the Daily Telegraph delivered a far closer set of results. Pollsters universally failed to predict the outcome of 2015's general election in the UK.

Britons will head to the polls on June 23 for the referendum, which is raising fears of a possible break-up of the 28-member bloc.

German firms such as Deutsche Bank AG and Commerzbank AG have a large exposure to London and would be faced with big problems in a Brexit, revealed Felix Hufeld in an interview with German newspaper Tagesspiegel. Mr Hufeld said the banks were now assessing the consequences of leaving and how their business dealings would be affected. The president of Bafin said the European Central Bank (ECB) is also planning to closely monitor the situation.

But Mr Hufeld warned if Britain doesn't vote to remain "Germany's biggest banks would have the biggest problems… They have the most activities in, and with, London." It came as Swiss financiers described the Brexit effect as a 'tsunami.' Chief economist, Alan McQuaid at Merrion Capital Group Ltd spoke of Brexit as a "game-changer" on Swiss banks. Swiss National Bank President Jordan warned back in April that a so-called Brexit would cause “enormous stress” in Europe.

Support for the Leave campaign has surged in the final days ahead of the June 23 referendum, with out now taking a 19 point lead.

On Saturday, “Mein Kampf” became even more widely accessible in Europe. The Italian newspaper Il Giornale distributed copies of the book to readers of its Saturday edition – a decision that drew heavy criticism from Jewish groups in the country.

“Mein Kampf” has been available in German bookstores since January – but only in an annotated version that is supposed to point out inconsistencies and lies in Hitler’s arguments. There are more than 3,000 additional comments in that version.

According to German law, publishing the book without annotations would be considered seditious. But that is what right-wing publishing company Schelm is now planning to do. Prosecutors are investigating the plans and could file charges even before the book gets published. “This book is too dangerous for the general public,” library historian Florian Sepp told The Washington Post last year, reflecting a sentiment among several German experts on that research field.

It is part of a government-funded drive for schools to be more sensitive to "trans" children who are questioning their gender identity. Diversity campaigners have warned schools that current policies risk discriminating against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pupils (LGBT).

Julie Robinson, general secretary at the Independent Schools Council, said public and private schools would soon follow suit and that some had already adjusted their policies to accommodate transgender children. But Christian organisations have raised concerns that introducing a choice of uniform could confuse young children and lead older pupils to question their identities at a time when they need reassurance.

It’s surprising to see the mainstream media have tried to keep this silent as even the website of the National Bank of Belgium didn’t bother to issue the press release in English (whereas all other press releases on the home page can be read in English). There’s no statement from the ECB either, nor has this news been translated on the English version of the website of the state-owned national television station.

The situation is so bad the regulator has already immediately tasked the special fund organizing the Deposit Guarantee Scheme to start paying out the clients of the bank, even though Optima Bank hasn’t filed a bankruptcy procedure just yet. The urgency of the need to pay the clients does indicate the situation is extremely bad and even though it’s a very small one (it had closed the savings accounts division last year), there are two more important things you need to keep in mind.

First of all, Optima was one of the banks which tried to attract new customers with sky-high interest rates. Suspiciously high, we might add. This reminded us of the Deutsche Bank promo in Belgium which also promised ultra-high interest rates on some of its products, as Optima clearly had a real need to see a cash inflow.

But secondly, and this is even more important, according to the official filings, the National Bank of Belgium had already effectively taken control of Optima Bank by appointing a ‘special commissioner’ to approve all transactions. Even though the NBB has only revoked the banking license just a few days ago, that special commissioner was already appointed in the first half of May.

That creates a completely new question. Are there other banks in the Eurozone which are under extremely strict supervision by the national (or supranational) regulators? If a Central Bank doesn’t even announce when a special commissioner is being appointed, how can the public be sure its deposits are safe? What else is going on in the Eurozone behind closed doors?

In fact, Banco Popular was one of the banks that had been definitively cleared by the European Central Bank in its 2014 study which was supposed to have a stricter overview of the entire sector. If you thought the crisis in the European banking sector was over, think again. Part 2 is just about to start.

Nor was it helped by the President of the EU Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, having called for the creation of such an army. There are already a number of intergovernmental military collaborations under the aegis of the European Union, specifically within its Common Security and Defence Policy as set out in the Lisbon Treaty.

It is true that at the moment they have the appearance of being piecemeal but there is no reason to believe that the EU will not integrate some or all of them into a single, unified military force as soon as it becomes possible. Indeed, it would be naive to expect them not to. As a nascent state, it would be happier with its own armed forces under its own command rather than rely on the scattered cooperation of its individual members.

And Article 42.7 of the Lisbon Treaty invites the suggestion, for it says: If a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power, in accordance with article 51 of the United Nations charter.

The US Treasury Department recently announced that the US would monitor China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and Germany for potential currency manipulation. The report noted that Germany has built up a significant bilateral trade surplus with the US, in addition to holding the second-largest current account surplus in the world, at approximately 8.3 percent of GDP.

It isn’t currency manipulation that has put Germany on this monitoring list. It is the fact that European and Chinese demand for German products has fallen. As a result, the US has become the destination for Germany’s exports in order to make up the difference. Export to the US, however, is a Band-Aid on a deeper wound.

Interest rates are low, and German banks are viewed as a safe haven in the European Union for stashing money. But since Germany is a creditor, many of the assets on German books are the unpaid debts of other eurozone countries. That means Germany is deeply exposed to a eurozone that still has not meaningfully recovered from the 2008 crisis.

Account surplus is usually seen as a positive. But if Germany has a surplus of 8.3 percent of GDP, why not use that surplus to stimulate domestic demand? Germany must be either unwilling or unable to use the surplus to stimulate domestic demand. This is in part because Germany is a creditor and invests abroad and in its own banks and companies. And this gets at the root of the entire problem. Germany exports almost half of its GDP. Germany imposed austerity on the EU after 2008, which has resulted in stratospherically high unemployment rates in southern Europe.

Demand has not returned to pre-financial crisis levels. Germany has been able to skirt the crisis while most of Europe is either still suffering or is in the doldrums. There are limits to US demand and its tolerance of German exports. All of this offers different unique prisms through which to see how the European Union’s connective tissue is fraying as the bloc’s economic logic becomes increasingly illogical.

Germany is the powerhouse of the EU and the fourth-largest economy in the world. But the truth is, the Germans are facing a profound crisis - and there's no way they can prevent it.

GERMANY - The Alternative for Germany party, started three years ago as a protest movement against the euro currency, won up to 25 percent of the vote in German state elections in March, challenging Germany’s consensus-driven politics. The party’s recently adopted policy platform says “Islam does not belong in Germany” and calls for a ban on the construction of mosques.

FRANCE - The National Front is a nationalist party that uses populist rhetoric to promote its anti-immigration and anti-European Union positions. The party favors protectionist economic policies and would clamp down on government benefits for immigrants, including health care, and drastically reduce the number of immigrants allowed into France.

THE NETHERLANDS - The anti-European Union, anti-Islam Party for Freedom has called for closing all Islamic schools and recording the ethnicity of all Dutch citizens.

GREECE - Founded in 1980, the neo-fascist party Golden Dawn came to international attention in 2012 when it entered the Greek Parliament for the first time, winning 18 seats and becoming the country’s third-largest party.

HUNGARY - Jobbik, an anti-immigration, populist and economic protectionist party, won 20 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections in 2014, making it Hungary’s third-largest party.

SWEDEN - The Sweden Democrats party, which has disavowed its roots in the white-supremacist movement, won about 13 percent of the vote in elections in September 2014, which gave it 49 of the 349 seats in Parliament.

AUSTRIA - Norbert Hofer of the nationalist and anti-immigration Freedom Party emerged as the clear front-runner in the first round of the presidential election in Austria in late April, winning 35 percent of the vote.

SLOVAKIA - The anti-Roma People’s Party - Our Slovakia - won 8 percent of the vote in March elections, securing 14 seats in the country’s 150-member Parliament.

Shank, the president of the Minneapolis futurist group TwinCities+, has a chip installed in his hand that can communicate electronically with his front door and tell it to unlock itself. His wife has one too. "You have mental checklists as you’re coming and going out of your home," Shank says. "One of those things is my wallet, keys, all those things I have with me. Once you start to eliminate all those things, you start to see all the mind space it actually clears not to have to worry about them."

In fact, Shank has several chips in his hand, including a near field communication (NFC) chip like the ones used in Apple Pay and similar systems, which stores a virtual business card with contact information for TwinCities+. "For people with Android phones, I can just tap their phone with my hand, right over the chip, and it will send that information to their phone," he says. In the past, he’s also used a chip to store a bitcoin wallet. Shank is one of a growing number of "biohackers" who implant hardware ranging from microchips to magnets inside their bodies.

It is not entirely clear what inspired Omar Mateen to commit the worst mass shooting in US history, or what might have been done to stop it. But it happened in a gay club, just two weeks shy of the first anniversary of the US Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, and on a weekend when cities across the country, including Washington, were holding gay pride festivals.

It was perpetrated during the holy month of Ramadan by an American-born man whose family originally came from Afghanistan. During the attack, he reportedly made a 911 call pledging allegiance to the Islamic State.

Meanwhile, the country’s anxieties have been rekindled. “In one sense, all of this seems so far out of control, you just wonder if there’s any way of ever getting it under control,” said George Pettice, an insurance agent from Charlotte, North Carolina. “Do we now start locking ourselves up in our houses, afraid to go anywhere?”

Not since 9/11 has a moment like this brought the nation together, and that evaporated quickly. Since then, calamity seems only to drive the left and the right further apart, while faith in the nation’s institutions deteriorates further.

But where it gets more disturbing is that as Judicial Watch reported several days ago, in a post titled, “DHS Quietly Moving, Releasing Vanloads Of Illegal Aliens Away From Border”, border patrol sources said that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was quietly transporting illegal immigrants from the Mexican border to Phoenix and releasing them without proper processing or issuing court appearance documents.

And this is where the Mateen-G4S link emerges. A security company contracted by the US government is driving the OTMs from the Border Patrol’s Tucson Sector where they were in custody to Phoenix, sources said. The firm is the abovementioned G4S…

In other words, Mateen, who according to preliminary reports, had been on a terrorist watchlist, and who still managed to obtain weapons thanks to his various licenses and permits just last week, was employed by one of the world’s largest security companies, where he may have had extensive clearances well above his pay grade, not to mention access to sophisticated military weapons and equipment.

It gets even more bizarre: despite his chequered history and his numerous FBI encounters, the Orlando Police just reported that he had managed to purchase firearms in just this past week. A Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesperson confirmed that Mateen legally purchased 2 firearms — a handgun and a long gun, “within the past few days.”