GERMANY:German angst is back. The economy is booming and the country is basking in 32-degree sunshine, but the last traces of World Cup afterglow were scattered for good this week by fears of violent attacks ahead of next month's G8 summit in the Baltic Sea resort of Heiligendamm.
Graffitied stencils of interior minister Wolfgang Schäuble and the caption "Stasi 2.0" have popped up on Berlin buildings after a report that police have begun using scent-tracking to keep tabs on potential trouble-makers ahead of the G8 meeting.
The report forced the federal prosecutor's office to admit it was using the procedure favoured by hated East German secret police. It involves keeping scent samples from suspects in vacuum jars. Trained dogs are given the sample if the individual has to be located.
In the days of satellite- and mobile-phone tracking, this back- to-the-future measure is just one example of the blurry and ill-defined angst in the air. Police chiefs speak in grave tones on the radio about the rising threat of left-wing violence ahead of the G8 summit, threats that secret service bosses rubbish a few hours later.
American authorities have put out G8 summit warnings based on information already disregarded by German colleagues.
Without a US-style traffic-light terror-warning system to jangle their nerves, Germans are forced to rely on the best-selling tabloid Bild. Here the danger - real or imagined - increases with the size of its headlines.
Yesterday, in 10cm-high letters, it predicted all-out chaos in the days ahead. Why? A dozen luxury cars were set alight in Hamburg and Berlin in the last 10 days, possibly by anti-globalisation left-wing groups.
It will be interesting to measure the headline over this morning's report on Bildeditor-in- chief Kai Diekmann. He woke yesterday to find his family car a smoking wreck. Diekmann is a hate figure among left-wing groups - the same groups that want to shut down the G8 summit.
An anxious police chief told German television last night they had no clues and no motive as to the act, but guessed that it was a "G8 arson attack".