The trailer for the show, which has been widely criticized by YouTube respondents, features white people expressing angst about how they are desperate not to appear “racist” or “offend people.” According to Kimberly Ricci, the documentary forces the participants “to internalize what they’ve done in America” – in other words, this a huge exercise in white guilt tripping for public consumption. An MTV write up of the show also explains how Vargas talks to young Native Americans who feel that European settlers did not ‘save the country’. “They are the ones who invaded. They are the ones who took,” says Vargas.

In the interests of balance, when will Vargas be fronting a show called Black People that collectively blames all black people for black crime statistics, including the fact that black people in America commit over half of homicides despite making up only 13 per cent of the population?

How about the fact that despite being outnumbered by whites five to one, blacks commit eight times more crimes against whites than vice-versa?

How about the fact that interracial rapes are almost exclusively black on white?

How about the Barbary slave trade, under which over 1 million white Christian Europeans were enslaved in North Africa until the middle of the 18th century?

Are black people going to be shown crying on camera having been shamed into taking responsibility for all of this? No, because that would be racist. But according to MTV and Vargas, subjecting someone to trial by media purely because of their skin color is perfectly acceptable – so long as they are white.

This documentary represents the culmination of years of race-baiting and racial division which is being driven by the mass media and the Obama White House, tensions which have rapidly accelerated since the Ferguson and Baltimore riots. Many in the liberal media are celebrating the show, with Kristen Yoonsoo remarking how pleased she is about the fact that, “lots of white people tears lie ahead.” “It’s always a good time poking fun at white people,” she concludes.

The notion that Sunday's referendum would persuade Germany to spend more taxpayers' money on bailing out Greece was angrily dismissed by numerous renegade Christian Democrat (CDU) MPs in media interviews. "We must now end this experiment with the reform-reluctant Greeks," said Christian von Stetten, head of the CDU's small business association group in parliament. Earlier, he described Greek government representatives as "rip-off merchants" and "conmen".

Andreas Scheuer, general secretary of the Bavarian wing of Ms Merkel's conservatives, was more emphatic. "Greece has said No and as far as we are concerned that means no to negotiations and to a further aid package," he told Germany's 'Bild' newspaper. Other leading conservatives said they agreed with the finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble, who has said that the "honest and consequent approach" would be for Greece to leave the eurozone.

Ms Merkel has been at odds with her finance minister by insisting over past months that Greece should remain inside. 'Der Spiegel' magazine warned yesterday that Ms Merkel would have to "reckon with rebels" if and when the issue of further Greek aid is put before parliament, as it must be under German law.

The comments by the head of state underline growing concern about hostility towards immigrants in Germany, which last year saw the emergence of the grassroots anti-Islam group PEGIDA. Since the beginning of the year, there have been 150 attacks on refugee shelters - nearly as many as in the whole of 2014.

Gauck called on citizens to stand up and defend Germany's democratic and liberal values by welcoming refugees from countries afflicted by war and human rights abuses.

Francis and Morales have met on several occasions, most recently in October when the president, a former coca farmer, participated in a Vatican summit of grassroots groups of indigenous and advocates for the poor who have been championed by Francis. Their shared views on the need for wealthy countries to drastically change course to address climate change bump up against Morales' anti-clerical initiatives that have roiled relations with the local church.

Taking up the global warming issue in Quito on Tuesday, Francis pressed the arguments made in his headline-grabbing encyclical earlier this month that the planet must not be exploited by the wealthy few for short-term profit at the expense of the poor.

The government declared a national holiday so workers and students could attend the Mass, which featured prayers in Guarani and Aimara, two of Bolivia's indigenous languages, and an altar carved from wood by artisans of the Chiquitano people. In a blending of the native and new, the famously unpretentious pope changed into his vestments for the Mass in a nearby Burger King.

Speaking to the crowd in South America's poorest country, Francis decried the prevailing mentality of the world economy where so many people are "discarded" today — the poor, the elderly, those who are unproductive. "It is a mentality in which everything has a price, everything can be bought, everything is negotiable," he said. "This way of thinking has room only for a select few, while it discards all those who are unproductive."

Six years later, that was expanded into a common market for everything else with the European Economic Community, and that in turn was expanded to include more and more countries before it became a part of the then-new European Union in 1993. The common currency came next in 1999, which has, yes, been expanded since, with Lithuania becoming its latest member just this year.

But now, for the first time in 60 years, this process of ever closer union might be reversing itself, at least a little. Greece really might be forced out of the euro if it doesn't come to terms with Europe by Sunday — that's the new and final deadline — and from there, who knows. It's possible this could actually make it easier for the rest of the euro zone to come even closer together, or it could be the beginning of the end of the dream of a United States of Europe. But in either case, the continent's political future is at stake.

The euro, in other words, was doomed to fail as it was constructed, but that failure was part of the plan. First you create a common currency that people want, and then, when the inevitable crisis comes, you have no choice but to create a common government that people don't — right? Well, no. The only thing less popular than a bailout is a bailout that never ends, which is what a fiscal union really is. Indeed, the Germans don't want to keep giving money to the Greeks, and the Greeks don't want to keep being told what to do by the Germans. So the irony is that the euro has made a single government more important than ever at the same time that it's made the idea more hated than ever.

The majority of the $10 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign-wealth fund, Public Investment Fund, will be spent on Russia’s agricultural projects, as well as on medicine, logistics, and the country’s retail and real estate sectors, RDIF chief Kirill Dmitriev told The Wall Street Journal.

Facing a political standoff with the West, Moscow has been turning eastward, saying it would seek Asian investors to reduce reliance on Europe and the US. In early May, Russia signed economic deals with China via the RDIF worth up to $25 billion, with Chinese banks investing in Russian companies.

But what about the rest of the country? From coast to coast, we are witnessing a dramatic increase in violent crime, and the economy is not even crashing yet. So what is going to happen when the next great economic crisis hits us, unemployment skyrockets, and people really start hurting?

Milwaukee, which had one of its lowest annual homicide totals in city history last year, has recorded 84 murders so far this year, more than double the 41 it tallied at the same point last year. Baltimore, New Orleans and St Louis have also seen the number of murders jump 33% or more in 2015. Meanwhile, Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, has seen the homicide toll climb by 19% and the number of shooting incidents increase in the city by 21% during the first half of the year.

In all the cities, the increased violence is disproportionately impacting poor and predominantly African-American and Latino neighborhoods. In parts of Milwaukee, the sound of gunfire has become so expected that about 80% of gunfire detected by ShotSpotter sensors aren’t even called into police by residents, Flynn said.

The homicide total for Baltimore for the year has risen to at least 154, according to police news releases. That’s an increase of more than 40 percent compared with the same time last year. Shootings have increased more than 80 percent. For the first time in more than a decade, overall crime is up in Los Angeles through the first six months of the year, rising by more than 12%, according to figures released Wednesday.

I believe that we have reached a turning point. I believe that we have entered a period of time when violent crime in the United States is going to start skyrocketing – especially once the next major economic downturn arrives. Meanwhile, budget cuts are forcing police forces to cut back all over the nation. For example, the number of patrol officers in the city of Detroit has been reduced by 37 percent in the last three years alone…

Most Greeks never imagined that they would be plunged into a multi-year economic depression that would ultimately lead to “bank holidays”, long lines at ATM machines, and people diving into dumpsters in a frantic search for something to sell. And this is just the beginning of the chaos in Greece – things are going to get much, much worse for them. Hopefully, this will serve as a wake up call for millions upon millions of clueless Americans out there, because we are on the exact same path that Greece has gone down.

The sad truth is that no amount of “American exceptionalism” is going to prevent us from suffering the consequences of decades of very foolish decisions. We are steamrolling toward our own version of economic collapse, and when that time arrives you don’t want to be caught totally unprepared for it. In some cities in the United States, it only takes an inch or two of snow during the winter to set off panic hoarding at local supermarkets and hardware stores.

So what is going to happen during a real crisis? But that could never happen in America, right? After all, aren’t we “the greatest nation in the world”? Sadly, what we experienced in 2008 was just a preview. We have piled up the greatest mountain of debt in the history of the planet, our financial system has been transformed into a gigantic casino, and our leaders have been making some of the dumbest decisions imaginable for decades. In the end, all of our foolishness is going to catch up with us in a big way.

“The realistic proposal from Greece will have to be matched by an equally realistic proposal on debt sustainability from the creditors,” said Donald Tusk, the European Council president. This is the first time Europe's institutions have acknowledged clearly that Greece’s public debt – 180 percent of GDP – can never be repaid and that no lasting solution can be found until the boil is lanced.

Any such deal would give Greek premier Alexis Tspiras a prize to take back to the Greek people after they voted by 61 percent to 39 percent to reject austerity demands in a landslide referendum last weekend. While he would still have to deliver on tough reforms and breach key red lines, a debt restructuring of sufficient scale would probably be enough to clinch a deal, and allow him to return to Athens as a conquering hero. The Greek parliament is due to vote to ratify the measures on Friday.

Germany’s subtle shift in position comes as the United States, France, and Italy joined in a united call for debt relief, buttressed by a crescendo of emphatic statements by Christine Lagarde, the head of the International Monetary Fund. "Greece is clearly in a situation of acute crisis, which needs to be addressed seriously and promptly. We remain fully engaged in order to find a solution to restore stability, growth and debt sustainability," said Ms Lagarde.

But elsewhere, stock valuations must be propped up no matter what happens in Greece.

In Europe, where few of the policymakers that have to deal with Greece appear to have gotten much sleep, the ECB will step in and do its magic, according to a note by Geopolitical Research of Canada’s National Bank Financial: “In the short term, the European Central Bank will attempt to manage the fallout from the Greek vote and potential Grexit by significantly increasing its purchase of government bonds and other debt from the remaining Euro zone countries in order avoid a dramatic rise in yields.”

Everyone is expecting this, and the expectation alone will limit the selloff. The promise of more QE will lure investors back into the market. But over the longer term – say, over three days – Europe faces one heck of a mess, according to the folks at NBF’s Geopolitical Research: “Europe is already surrounded by a geopolitical ring of fire. Large parts of North Africa and the Middle East are in chaos, Ukraine is beset by civil war and economic collapse, and relations with Russia remain tense. The collapse of Greece would mean that Europe would have to worry about yet another quasi-failed state on its periphery.”

Chilling.

Then there’s China. It has its own problems: a wondrous stock-market bubble that has become a national priority but has been crashing for three weeks; and an economy that has entered a hard landing and is now at risk of getting hammered by the very stocks that had propped it up over the past 12 months. The Chinese government doesn’t need Greece to feel panic. After having lured even street vendors and farmers into highly leveraged stock market positions that have now collapsed, is the Chinese government worried about popular upheaval?

While Germany has been a leader in imposing sanctions against Russia for its annexation of Crimea and involvement in the eastern Ukraine conflict, Berlin has been concerned about the knock-on effect of sanctions on its $105 billion bilateral trade with Russia, which has steadily decreased as sanctions and the falling price of oil take a toll on the Russian economy.

"We in Germany would like the political foundation for the sanctions to go as soon as possible and the sanctions themselves become a thing of the past. But it is clear that for the sanctions to be lifted, the Minsk Accords need to be implemented," Bernhard Kaster, head of the Russia-Germany parliamentary group, told journalists in Novosibirsk, Russia.

The German publication Der Spiegel was leaked a copy of the draft, and concluded: “Berlin is serious about taking the lead as the euro zone struggles with a suddenly weak currency.” Germany wanted a Europe where the European Commission had the power to suspend the voting rights of nations for violating the eurozone’s debt and spending laws, including plans for managing the bankruptcy of a member nation. “Europe,” said Angela Merkel, “needs a new culture of stability.” But that culture would be enforced through the destabilizing power of financial market crises.

The German bet was that the EU could outrun financial markets, using the crisis as an opportunity to advance fiscal and political integration and impose their demands upon the rest of Europe, while simultaneously preventing markets from creating a crisis so severe that it threatened the euro or the economies of the more powerful nations. Without the pressure of financial markets, the EU could not force its member nations to restructure their economies and societies. Chancellor Merkel would frequently describe the European debt crisis to her colleagues as a “poker game” between financial markets and politicians. The first to flinch would lose.

Brussels has now convened a full emergency summit of all 28 European leaders on Sunday to thrash out a deal to keep Greece in the single currency. "I have no doubt that this is the most critical moment in the history of the European Union," said Mr Tusk. He dismissed any notion that letting Greece leave the euro would not have irreparable geopolitical consequences for the continent. "If someone has any illusion that it will not be so, they are naive."

The hard Left government is also fast running out of time and patience among its last remaining allies. Mr Tsipras could not “put a gun to our head or a knife at our throats", said Belgium's Prime Minister Charles Michel. Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said it was for the government to ultimately decide “whether they want to stay in euro or not”. “In order to stay in euro, rules need to be followed,” said Mr Renzi, who has been considered as one of the Greeks' few backers. “We have very little time,” said Jeroen Dijssebloem, head of the bloc’s finance ministers.

Germany’s political strategy was to allow the debt crisis to spread, creating the pressure required to force eurozone nations to accept German demands of restructuring their economies in return for financial aid from the EU. The German magazine Der Spiegel described Frau Merkel’s overall European strategy: “the aim was to solve the debt crisis in a step-by-step fashion.”

It may still remain between citizens of both countries, but not between their governments. Perhaps it has always been an illusion, perhaps the United States pulled away over the course of time. But what binds these two nations today cannot be considered friendship. Openness and fairness are part of the essence of friendship, which is about mutual respect and trust. A quarter century after the United States helped the German people restore their national unity, little remains of this friendship.

As new documents from WikiLeaks and reporting by SPIEGEL show, the NSA has been systematically spying on much of the German government. America's spies not only listened in on Chancellor Angela Merkel's private conversations about sensitive political issues. The NSA also bugged ministries, ministerial offices and other government agencies. Not even journalism is sacred to the Americans - at least not in Germany. American spies monitored at least one SPIEGEL colleague in Berlin - spies who represent a country that considers itself a guarantor of freedom of the press, one of the cornerstones of a liberal democracy.

Today we know: The friendly smile worn by Angela Merkel's hosts in Washington all these years has been insincere at best.

The chancellor must show Washington a clear sign of resistance. Germany must free itself from this pact with the NSA. In the future, it must write the rules for its cooperation with intelligence agencies itself - which may mean that certain information will no longer be shared. It would not be the end of cooperation between the two countries, particularly not on the issues of trade and foreign policy. Germany and America will have shared interests in certain matters. But currently, there's little room in the relationship for more than that.