“Another barbaric attack in Europe — this time by a man from Saudi Arabia,” said Mr Wilders. “Once again, an incredible number of innocent victims, dead and wounded. Once again, politicians crying crocodile tears. I’ve been saying it for over 20 years: stop with those open borders.” Ms Len Pen followed suit: “Once again, Islamist barbarity is sowing terror in the heart of Europe. This act of war against a symbol of our civilisation is heartbreaking.” Mr Farage added: “We have allowed people who hate us and our values into Europe. Christmas is their target. Any guesses why?”

THE TRUTH APPEARS TO BE A LITTLE MORE COMPLICATED. Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, the Saudi who rammed his BMW into a crowd of festive shoppers, killing five, including a nine-year-old boy, and injuring scores of others, appears to be not an Islamist fanatic but an opponent of Islam. An enthusiastic user of Elon Musk’s X platform, he tagged himself as an ex-Muslim and founded a website supposedly helping women to escape from Saudi Arabia, which he fled in 2006. Riyadh says it warned Berlin that Abdulmohsen, who was apparently granted refugee status in Germany ten years after his arrival, was an extremist but was repeatedly ignored.

The porous borders created by Schengen and now being sealed by EU members like Poland and Austria in defiance of Brussels have created a reservoir of resentment across Europe, not least in Germany, the EU’s biggest economy, which in 2016 threw open its doors to a million Syrian and other refugees. That resentment has been further stoked by fears over Germany’s economy, most conspicuously its vaunted motor industry, is stalling under the pressure of global competition. Now, the peace of Christmas has been shattered by nihilistic violence set in that most German of festive scenes. It is the AfD that will be seeking to best capitalise on Germany’s winter of discontent.

The prominent Iranian opposition group’s officials identified key figures in this program, including Saeed Borji, chairman of Arvin Kimia Abzar, and CEO Akbar Motallebizadeh. Both are high-ranking experts in SPND with extensive histories in nuclear weapons projects, including EBW detonators. Borji’s involvement with explosive technologies dates back to his training with Ukrainian scientist Vyacheslav V Danilenko, highlighting international dimensions to Iran’s nuclear efforts.

“Transparency is non-existent in the regime’s nuclear program,” said Alireza Jafarzadeh, Deputy Director of NCRI’s Washington Office, as he stressed the need for immediate International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections of the Meshkat Complex and other critical sites. “The regime is focusing on building a bomb as the only means for its survival,” he added.

He wrote: "The United States has a vested interest in the secure, efficient, and reliable operation of the Panama Canal, and that was always understood. We would and will NEVER let it fall into the wrong hands! It was not given for the benefit of others, but merely as a token of cooperation with us and Panama.

If the principles, both moral and legal, of this magnanimous gesture of giving are not followed, then we will demand that the Panama Canal be returned to us, in full, and without question. To the Officials of Panama, please be guided accordingly!"

Yet there are points of legitimate comparison. Many voters are thoroughly disillusioned with the political system as a whole: 57 per cent feel Germany is not equipped to deal with the challenges of the present, according to a recent poll, and 56 per cent do not trust any party to deal with its problems. Even previous symbols of national pride, such as the car industry and the punctuality of the train network, have been tarnished.

The Magdeburg attack will also exacerbate a widespread sense of physical peril, as well as a broader anxiety that the former chancellor Angela Merkel once called Unbehagen (unease or discomfort). One recent survey for ARD, the public broadcast network, found that 44 per cent of Germans feel either “somewhat” or “very” unsafe in their country, twice the level that was recorded when their pollster first started regularly asking the question in 2017.

Germany is awash with politically motivated crime. The total number of offences has almost doubled over the past decade and last year it surpassed 60,000, the highest level since modern records began in 2001, with increases in every category from the far right to the far left, including “religious” and “foreign” ideology.

For the first time in two decades, voters are confronted with meaningful choices between the parties of the centre on the issues that matter most to them: the economy, the justice system, asylum and integration. These differences may ultimately be sanded down to irrelevance by the mechanics of coalition government. But the argument has at least begun.

On Friday, Dr Beatrix von Storch, the party’s deputy leader, told The Telegraph: “Anyone who previously doubted whether Musk, the richest man in the world, is also the smartest – well, now it’s clear. He is at the very least one of the smartest because he is calling people to vote for the AfD,” she said. “Only the AfD can save Germany,” repeating Musk’s claim.

Musk has shifted his focus to politics in recent months, supporting US president-elect Donald Trump. His tweets have increasingly focused on politics, as highlighted in a recent Wall Street Journal analysis, and he has already expressed support for other anti-immigration parties across Europe.

Iran was the fourth-largest oil producer in OPEC last year, according to the US Energy Information Administration. Yet it cannot provide for its own fuel needs — despite the easing of sanctions by the Biden-Harris administration.

Already plagued by chronic air pollution and water shortages, the Iranian regime also faces a collapsing currency and decaying infrastructure, as its terrorist proxies continue to lose the war against Israel they started with the Hamas terror attack last October 7, and as Israel plans a possible attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

It raises difficult questions for the country’s leaders and for global development more generally. How can an economic powerhouse like Nigeria be struggling to feed and adequately care for so many people? What is preventing the very substantial economic gains of the last 30 years from trickling down?

President Bola Tinubu’s economic policies have triggered the worst cost of living crisis in a generation. Under pressure to balance the country’s budget, he scrapped a decades-old petrol subsidy, one of the few benefits citizens received from their inefficient state, quadrupling transport costs overnight. He also devalued the country's currency, the Naira, allowing its purchasing power to fall sharply and inflation to soar. Bad news for a country where more than 83 million people or 40 per cent of the population already live in extreme poverty, with the average surviving on less than $2 (£1.58) a day.

Kidnapping is also rife. Just three months ago, 33 people were snatched from Mr Lawal’s community. The bandits demanded six million naira (£2,860) – more than the average monthly wage of 75 Nigerians. The community pitched together to pay the ransom. On release, they told of forced labour, sexual violence and rape. Sixteen still haven’t returned.

This level of chemical exposure raises profound questions about safety — questions that, according to Tenpenny, remain unanswered because vaccines have never been proven safe. “That’s why,” she said, “they’ve never been proven to be safe. Giving your child a vaccination is like injecting foreign matter into a little baby — the most precious little thing in your life.”

Back in 1986, a baby was given 6 vaccines in their first year. Today - they are given 33!

This is not about rejecting science. It’s about demanding better science. Transparency. Accountability. Safety. Parents deserve the truth, not half-truths shrouded in medical jargon and marketing campaigns. They deserve the full picture of what’s being injected into their children — so they can make decisions with their eyes wide open.

Outgoing presidents are usually keener than ever to put on a display of hyperactivity in that long transition period between the election and the inauguration of their successor. They know they have 75 days or so to shape final impressions of their presidency, to deepen the foundations for a legacy. So they give reflective speeches on what they’ve learnt; they issue impassioned defences of their time in the White House; they rush to cap off some symbolic outstanding business. They begin, in other words, that critical process of converting themselves from partisan competitor in the crowded arena of the here and now into a worthy occupant of a more serene place in the pantheon of American history.

But Biden has left the building. He made a brief pre-planned trip to Africa in which the most memorable moment was when he appeared to fall asleep during a roundtable with local leaders. He attended another international meeting in Brazil in which at one point he seemed to wander off into the rainforest. Aides insist he is working on trying to secure a peace deal in the Middle East and in Ukraine but there’s not much evidence for that.

Instead he has left the stage to Donald Trump, a man who hardly needs an invitation to step into the limelight. The former and future president has been meeting foreign leaders at home and abroad; issuing proclamations on policy present and future. This week it has been he, not Biden, engaging in the messy process of getting Congress to pass bills to keep the government funded.

History will not be kind to Biden, whoever writes it. To the left, he will forever be the man who, through his selfish insistence on running again in the face of his own cognitive collapse, precluded the Democratic Party from having a real contest to find a successor and allowed Trump back into the White House. To the right, he will be the man who won a narrow majority for the Democratic Party in a contentious 2020 election and chose, stubbornly and destructively, to interpret it as a mandate for a radical lurch to the left in the country’s political culture. He wanted to be remembered as the man who thwarted Donald Trump. Instead he will go down in history as the man who empowered him.