"Mrs Thatcher did believe people who escaped from the Soviet Empire, from the Warsaw Pact, would not want to put themselves under a strong central authority again - this time in Brussels not Moscow," says Lord Kerr, Britain's former ambassador to the EU. "So she believed that the advent of East Europeans would make the European Union more confederal rather than federal. That it would be a Europe of free proud independent nation states. That was her view. It was clearly wrong."

The Poles and others did not believe that Brussels was remotely like Moscow; or that the European Commission was remotely comparable to the Soviet Politburo. "For us joining the EU was the ultimate institutional confirmation that we were a regular European country," Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski tells me. "Today, when the Polish government wants to know something about Europe... they don't go to Paris, they go to Berlin", says Joachim Bitterlich - Helmut Kohl's former foreign policy advisor. "It's a difficult position for the Germans because from 1989/90 they had to learn something they had totally forgotten: responsibility and leadership."

A year ago he went to Berlin and gave a speech calling on Germany to lead in Europe - actively pushing for a more disciplined and, yes, more centralised European Union - not as a way of undermining national sovereignty, but as a way of more securely anchoring freedom in Europe. "The problem [of the current crisis in the] eurozone was the treaties were not enforced; that rules were breached when their observance depended only on the goodwill of member states - and of course that included the biggest ones too," he says. "So in order to make the EU work we need stronger rules." Stronger rules: it is not what the British had hoped for from their new partners in the East.

Stovall told the group of almost 40 residents that beginning in 2013, the department would deploy a new street crimes unit to high crime areas on foot to take back the streets. "Police are going to be in SWAT gear and have AR-15s around their neck," Stovall said. "If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID."

Stovall said while some people may be offended by the actions of his department, they should not be. "We're going to do it to everybody," he said. "Criminals don't like being talked to." Gaskill backed Stovall's proposed actions during Thursday's town hall meeting. "They may not be doing anything but walking their dog," he said. "But they're going to have to prove it."

Stovall said he did not consult an attorney before announcing his plans to combat crime. He even remained undaunted when comparing his proposed tactics with martial law, explaining that "I don't know that there's ever been a difference" between his proposals and martial law. Should an individual not produce identification, Stovall said his officers would not back down. Individuals who do not produce identification when asked could be charged with obstructing a governmental operation, according to Stovall.

A communique released by the Holy See reported that the discussions that took place during the meeting focused in particular on the recent resolution approved by the United Nations General Assembly, whereby Palestine was recognized as a Non-member Observer State.

"It is hoped that this initiative will encourage the commitment of the international community to finding a fair and lasting solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which may be reached only by resuming negotiations between the Parties, in good faith and according due respect to the rights of both," the communique stated. The press release from the Holy See stated that it was its hope that "the courage for reconciliation and peace will be found."

Thousands of New Age mystics, spiritual adventurers and canny businessmen are converging on ancient ruins in southern Mexico and Guatemala to find out what will happen. "No one knows what it will look like on the other side," said Michael DiMartino, 46, a long-haired American who is organizing one of the biggest December 21 celebrations at the Maya temple site of Chichen Itza on the Yucatan peninsula.

It is not the world but "the way we perceive it" that will end, said DiMartino, who pledged his event at ground zero for 2012 acolytes will be a "distilling down of various perspectives into a unified intention for positive transformation, evolution and co-creation of a new way of being."

A mash-up of academic speculation and existential angst seasoned with elements from several world religions, the 2012 phenomenon has been fueled by Hollywood movies and computer games, and relentlessly disseminated by Internet doom-mongers. Mass hysteria in a Russian prison, a Chinese man building survival pods for doomsday and UFO lovers seeking refuge with aliens in a French mountain village are just some of the reports that have sprung up in the final countdown to December 21.

"This is the Arab Spring of the spiritual movement," said Geoffrey Ocean Dreyer, a 52-year-old US musician wearing a sombrero and mardi gras beads. "We're going to create world peace. We're going to Jerusalem and we're going to rebuild Solomon's temple."

Heartbreaking, the plight of the Greeks. There was an old man who’d worked over 40 years, but now his pension had been cut in half, and he couldn’t afford his heart medication any longer. To check into the hospital, he had to bring his own sheets and food. Since the cleaning staff had been let go, doctors and nurses, who hadn’t been paid in months, were cleaning the toilets themselves. The hospital was running short on basic medical supplies, such as latex gloves and catheters. And the suicide rate doubled over the last three years — two-thirds of them, men.

There were pregnant women rushing from hospital to hospital, begging to be admitted to give birth. They had no health insurance and no money, and no one wanted to help them. People who used to be middle class were picking through discarded fruit and vegetables off the street as the stands from a farmers’ market were being taken down.

“Collective trauma” is how Pieper described the society whose bottom had been pulled out from under it. “Men are particularly hard hit by the crisis,” Pieper said, as their pay had been decimated, or their jobs eliminated. They’re seething with anger at the utterly corrupt system and a kleptocratic government that have done so much damage to the country; and they’re furious at the international bailout politics whose money only benefits big banks, not the people.

These men take their anger to their families, and their sons take that anger to the street. Hence the growing number of violent gangs that attack minorities." The will to survive in humans is enormous, Pieper points out, and so humans are able to overcome even incredibly difficult situations. To do that, they need a functioning society with real structures and safety nets. But in Greece, society has been hollowed out for years to the point where it is collapsing.

“In such a dramatic situation as can be observed in Greece, the human being becomes a sort of predator, only seeing himself and his own survival,” Pieper said. “Sheer necessity pushes him into irrationality, and in the worst case, this irrationality transcends into criminality.” At that stage in society, he said, “solidarity is replaced by selfishness.”

And so he wondered, “how much this society can endure before it explodes.” Greece is on the brink of civil war, he went on, and it seems only a question of time before the collective desperation of the people erupts into violence and spreads across the country. A ricocheting indictment of the euro bailout policies.

“If Spaniards are down to spending on average €17 per shopping trip, I can’t sell him detergent for half of his budget,” Zijderveld explained. “In Indonesia we sell individual packages of shampoo for 2 to 3 cents and still earn a fair amount.” By looking at Europe, particularly Southern Europe, as a market with the characteristics of developing countries, Unilever has transitioned from seeing the debt crisis as a temporary event to seeing it as a trend to which it has to adjust its strategies. So now in Spain, it sells its “Surf” detergent in packages that are good for five loads.

In Greece, it sells mashed potatoes and mayonnaise in small packages. And in Great Britain, it’s implementing the same strategy. Because people are running out of money. And it’s been successful. Since they started this in 2011, sales have stopped falling; and in the first half of the year, they edged up 1.1%.