The stack of paper is thicker than a brick and heavier than the Berlin phone book. It contains 3,051 exhibits and 1,147 pages of classified information. These pages could soon form the basis for a decision to make a new attempt to ban Germany's far-right National Democratic Party (NPD). Only a little over a week ago, on August 28, German President Joachim Gauck urged such bold action against neo-Nazis during his speech to mark the 20th anniversary of racist riots in the northeastern city of Rostock. [Mr] Gauck spoke of a state that "is able to defend itself."

Now, this dossier, which has been in its final version since late last week, is supposed to be the weapon in that fight. It is the weapon of a democracy that defends itself against its enemies - a democracy that is vigilant and alert, not frail and weak.

Bavarian Governor Horst Seehofer, who heads the conservative Christian Social Union (CSU), wants to deploy this weapon at all costs. He is determined to show decisiveness in the fight against right-wing extremism, and thus add momentum to his campaign ahead of the Bavarian state election in the fall of 2013 - "if necessary, single-handedly," as he says.

By contrast, his fellow party member, Hans-Peter Friedrich, who bears responsibility for the initiative as German interior minister, is afraid that the bid to ban the NPD will be rejected by the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, as happened with a previous attempt to ban the party in 2003. Typically, German Chancellor Angela Merkel remains noncommittal. She is merely observing.

Exports are a major pillar of the German economy, but now the sector is starting to feel the impact of the euro crisis and the global economc slowdown. German export orders fell in August by the highest rate in more than three years, the Markit financial information company announced Monday after conducting a survey of 500 industrial firms.

"Survey respondents commented on a general slowdown in global demand and particular weakness in new business inflows from Southern Europe," the institute said. The firms hardest hit by declines are manufacturers of machinery and other investment goods as well as producers of intermediate goods such as chemicals. In the first half of 2012, German exports had still grown thanks to demand from Japan, the United States and Russia. But it was already evident then that exports to crisis-hit countries were falling sharply, and that trend is now continuing.

Markit economist Tim Moore said the German industrial sector is going through its worst quarter - the three months to the end of September - in more than three years. "The new orders figures are especially disappointing, with export work dropping at the fastest pace since April 2009 amid an ongoing deterioration in global demand," he said in a statement.

Following General Martin Dempsey's statement that "I don’t want to be complicit" if Israel chooses to attack Iran, the Journal writes acidly: ”We don’t know what exactly General Dempsey thinks American non-complicity might entail in the event of a strike. Should the Administration refuse to resupply Israel with jets and bombs, or condemn an Israeli strike at the UN? Nor do we know if the General was conducting freelance diplomacy or sending a signal from an Administration that feels the same way but doesn’t want to say so during a political season."

The editorial sides with Israel, and says it's no wonder the Israelis are upset at the US Administration. "It’s one thing to hear from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he wants to wipe you off the map: At least it has the ring of honesty. It’s quite another to hear from President Obama that he has your back, even as his Administration tries to sell to the public a make-believe world in which Iran’s nuclear intentions are potentially peaceful, sanctions are working and diplomacy hasn’t failed after three and half years."

"The irony for the Administration is that its head-in-the-sand performance is why many Israeli decision-makers believe they had better strike sooner than later. Not only is there waning confidence that Mr Obama is prepared to take military action on his own, but there’s also a fear that a re-elected President Obama will take a much harsher line on an Israeli attack than he would before the first Tuesday in November ".

The Obama Administration should be making an effort to show Israel that it takes the Iranian threat seriously, the newspaper opines. Instead, it is doing the opposite. "Since coming to office, Obama Administration policy toward Israel has alternated between animus and incompetence. We don’t know what motivated General Dempsey’s outburst, but a President who really had Israel’s back would publicly contradict it." As Arutz Sheva noted, General Dempsey's statement means, in essence, that the US does not "have Israel's back," in contradiction to the pledge made by [Mr] Obama earlier in the year.

In addition to increasing US naval activity in the region, Washington is also preparing to intensify economic sanctions against Iran’s oil industry, the New York Times reported. The US – along with 25 other countries – will conduct extensive joint minesweeping exercises in the Persian Gulf in October. The move aims to increase pressure on Iran and prevent it from closing the Strait of Hormuz.

“It will not be the case that the south will get the so-called wealthy states to pay. Because then Europe would fall apart.” Thus spoke Horst Köhler, former German president, finance secretary and IMF head, almost two decades ago.

[Mr] Köhler’s remarks are worth pondering. A series of multi-billion-euro bail-outs – and more to come – have now planted a north-south political divide at the heart of the European project. Taxpayers in Europe’s north resent underwriting their southern neighbours, while voters in the south are equally frustrated at having austerity imposed upon them from abroad. As has been noted repeatedly, this is the greatest tragedy of this crisis: a project that was meant to bring people together, now risks driving them further apart. Alas, events in the eurozone this autumn could further exacerbate this tension.

There are at least five key stand-offs to watch over the next few months:

Greece v Germany: Greece managed narrowly to escape running out of money today by raising almost 4 billion euros in short-term debt. But Athens will face an excruciating autumn. On almost every count, Greece is miles away from meeting its EU-mandated austerity targets, which raises the question of whether Germany – or the IMF – will pull the plug on the country in October when its next progress report is due.

Spain v the North: Amid continued problems, Spain could possibly request EU cash as early as September. But the country is simply too big for a Greece-style bail-out, while Madrid would not accept having its economic policies fully decided in Brussels and Berlin. Instead a third way must be found involving less money and softer conditions, probably with heavy and controversial ECB involvement.

The bail-out funds v national democracy: On September 12, Germany’s constitutional court will rule on whether the eurozone’s permanent bail-out fund – the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) – is compatible with the country’s “basic law’, following a host of complaints. Though unlikely, should it strike it down, the markets will go absolutely crazy.

The Dutch v Europe: September 12 will also see another example of national democracy reasserting itself: the Dutch elections. Geert Wilders, leader of the super-populist PVV, is seeking to turn the campaign into a referendum on Europe, hoping to tap into the Dutch anti-bail-out mood. At the same time, the Dutch socialists – currently leading in the polls – have vowed to resist both the EU fiscal treaty and further transfers of power to the EU without approval in referendums.

Germany v France: This autumn will also see negotiations over whether the eurozone will take the next big leap towards an economic union, with an October EU summit tasked with providing a “road map” for more integration. Ideas include a banking union (with a single supervisor and joint backstop) and collective government borrowing in the form of eurobonds. The issues are tremendously complicated, subject to a cobweb of disagreements and will take years to clear away. But importantly, this could widen the gap between Germany and France, with the two disagreeing fundamentally on the order of events.

The last severe ENSO occurred between 1997 and 1998. Severe rain in South America destroyed crops in Ecuador and flooded copper mines in Chile and Peru. However, before we get any indication of whether this will be a mild or strong ENSO event, we have the annual hurricane season to contend with. There are no signs yet of curbs on grain. Indeed, Russia, which has also been experiencing a drought that has slashed grain yields by about a quarter, has been at pains to say it will not be restricting shipments.

On Friday, Nikolai Fedorov, the country's agriculture minister, reiterated that there will be no curbs in the current growing season. However, there is a big question mark over the weather for the rest of the year. Oil is the commodity most affected by these weather systems, as the Gulf of Mexico is a significant producer of oil and gas. However, at the end of last week soybean prices surged to a record level on fears that Hurricane Isaac would damage crops and delay harvesting in parts of the US, which is the world's largest producer of the grain.

Significantly, the World Bank also cited an oil price shock, which would cause energy prices to leap, as one of the negative factors that could make things worse. Prices have been creeping higher as Western sanctions on Iran have resulted in a loss of about 1 million barrels per day in crude exports. So the weather is the critical factor behind the abrupt global food price increases in July and there could be more bad weather to come for the world's farmers. We should not panic about a food crisis just yet. We must, however, keep one eye on which way the wind is blowing.

According to the report, the US sent the message to Iran in order to avoid an Iranian military response that would target US installations in the Gulf region. The message was reportedly conveyed to Iran through two European countries that serve as a conduit of communication between Iran and the US in times of crisis.

Nationalist newspaper Makor Rishon has accused Yediot Aharonot of working with the Obama Administration against the Netanyahu government's planned strike on Iran. According to the New York Times, senior US officials have argued that Israel is "trying to corner" [Mr] Obama into a military commitment that he does not yet need to make.

[Mr] Netanyahu's remarks suggested a growing impatience with Israel's main ally, the United States, and other countries that have been pressing him to give diplomacy and sanctions more time to work and hold off on any go-it-alone strike on Iran. Recent heightened Israeli rhetoric has stoked speculation that Israel might attack Iran before the US elections in November, believing that President Barack Obama would give it military help and not risk alienating pro-Israeli voters.

"I believe the truth must be stated: The international community is not placing a clear red line for Iran and Iran does not see international resolve to stop its nuclear programme," [Mr] Netanyahu told his cabinet. "Unless Iran sees this clear red line and this clear resolve it will not stop moving forward with its nuclear programme, and Iran must not have nuclear weapons," he said, repeating his view that sanctions so far have not curbed Tehran's atomic ambitions.

Although [Mr] Netanyahu did not single out [Mr] Obama in his criticism, Israeli officials have said they hope for stronger language from the president about possible US military action. [Mr] Obama, who has had a frosty relationship with [Mr] Netanyahu, has insisted he will not allow Iran to build atomic weapons and that all options are on the table.

Among 1,278 patients who were resistant to two or more first-line tuberculosis drugs in Estonia, Latvia, Peru, Philippines, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Thailand, 43.7 percent showed resistance to at least one second-line drug, according to a study led by Tracy Dalton at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings were published in the Lancet medical journal today.

About 1.4 million people died from TB, the second-deadliest infectious disease globally after AIDS, and 650,000 cases were multi-drug resistant in 2010, according to the World Health Organization. Rising infection rates prompted the UK to announce in May it will require pre-entry tuberculosis screening for migrants from 67 countries seeking to enter the country for more than 6 months.

“The global emergence of extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis heralds the advent of widespread, virtually untreatable tuberculosis,” the study's authors said in the published paper.

The Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano made the announcement together with an official admission that there have been "grave acts of disloyalty”. The "Vatileaks" scandal, as it is known, has filled Italian media. It has dominated the columns of Italian newspapers and magazines and been the subject of TV programmes, the BBC's David Willey in Rome reports. The leak of a string of highly sensitive internal documents from inside the Vatican's Secretariat of State, including personal letters to Pope Benedict XVI, are an evident embarrassment to the pope, our correspondent says.

The leaked documents include a letter to Pope Benedict by the Vatican's current ambassador to Washington alleging cronyism, nepotism and corruption among the administrators of Vatican City. Others concern poison pen memos criticising Carinal Tarcisio Bertone, the pope's number two, and the reporting of suspicious payments by the Vatican Bank.

Martini, once tipped as a future pope, urged the Church to recognise its errors and to embark on a radical path of change, beginning with the Pope. Thousands of people have been filing past his coffin in Milan, where he was archbishop for more than 20 years.

The widely respected cardinal - a member of the Jesuit religious order - was often outspoken in his writings and comments on Church teaching, says the BBC's David Willey in Rome. He was a courageous and outspoken figure during the 22 years he headed Europe's largest Catholic diocese, our correspondent says.

What they found was the widespread use of sophisticated, off-the-shelf computer espionage software by governments with questionable records on human rights. While the software is supposedly sold for use only in criminal investigations, the two came across evidence that it was being used to target political dissidents.

The software proved to be the stuff of a spy film: it can grab images of computer screens, record Skype chats, turn on cameras and microphones and log keystrokes. The two men said they discovered mobile versions of the spyware customized for all major mobile phones. But what made the software especially sophisticated was how well it avoided detection. Its creators specifically engineered it to elude antivirus software made by Kaspersky Lab, Symantec, F-Secure and others.

The software has been identified as FinSpy, one of the more elusive spyware tools sold in the growing market of off-the-shelf computer surveillance technologies that give governments a sophisticated plug-in monitoring operation. Research now links it to servers in more than a dozen countries, including Turkmenistan, Brunei and Bahrain, although no government acknowledges using the software for surveillance purposes.

The market for such technologies has grown to $5 billion a year from “nothing 10 years ago,” said Jerry Lucas, president of TeleStrategies, the company behind ISS World, an annual surveillance show where law enforcement agents view the latest computer spyware.