Schulz, a Social Democrat, has led the European Union’s legislature since 2012 and is a prominent advocate of maintaining the EU. As a senior member of the SPD who’s well-known in Germany, he’ll be in a strong position as the party prepares to select its candidate for the top of the ticket in January.

Merkel’s announcement on Sunday that she’ll seek a fourth term in 2017 is spurring the Social Democrats, her junior coalition partner, to consider options. Party leader Sigmar Gabriel, who sits at Merkel’s cabinet table as vice chancellor and economy minister, hasn’t said whether he’ll run for chancellor and Schulz, 60, is a possible alternative.

“More than ever, the world needs a united European Union,” Schulz told reporters in Brussels on Thursday. “From now on, I will fight for this project from the national level. Only by doing this will it be possible to regain the lost trust.” Any SPD candidate will have a steep climb against Merkel, whose Christian Democratic-led bloc leads the Social Democrats by as many as 13 percentage points in national polls. Germany is expected to hold its next national election in September [2017].

Last week, though, the mood among the chancellor's staff in Berlin began to brighten. Donald Trump's election in the United States, many of her aides felt, made it more likely that Merkel would campaign for re-election. And on Sunday, she finally put an end to the speculation and announced her candidacy.

In the press conference following her announcement, Merkel made certain to deny media pronouncements - made by, among others, the New York Times - that the German chancellor was now the de-facto ruler of the free world. Such a notion was "grotesque" and "absurd," she said.

But is it? Trump's victory, after all, has changed the world. Up until November 8, it seemed unimaginable that the West could in fact be in danger of destroying itself; that the very citizens who enjoy the freedoms guaranteed by Western liberalism could endanger the West by their own loss of faith in democracy. It proves that philosopher Jürgen Habermas was right to speak of "the shattering of political stability in our Western countries as a whole." The fundamental values of democracy - enlightenment, the rule of law, respect and decency - are no longer self-evident. And that holds true in Germany as well.

Trump's election victory has now presented Germans with the question: How well does our own democracy work? Could someone like Trump be possible here too?

Conspiracy theorists have long suggested "controlled explosions" were carried out in the building – but the official version of events says flaming debris from the burning Twin Towers flew into the 47-floor skyscraper. Tower 7, which housed the Secret Service, the CIA, the Department of Defence and the Office of Emergency Management, collapsed after seven hours of burning.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology insists it was the first and only steel skyscraper in the world to collapse as a result of fire. But new bombshell claims suggest “office fires” could not have caused its destruction. The report, by a group of top engineers from the University of Alaska, insists the flames could not have brought the tower down.

Dr J Leroy Hulsey revealed the team's boss findings at the Justice In Focus Symposium in New York. He said: “It is our preliminary conclusions based upon our work to date that fire did not produce the failure at this particular building.” The findings will add fuel to conspiracy theories which suggest the twin towers and WTC 7 were blown up.

Some have even blamed the US Government which they say wanted to provide the grounds for military strikes in the Middle East. Historically, skyscrapers have resisted collapse after fires. A skyscraper in Philadelphia burned for 18 hours in 1991 and a high-rise in Madrid in 2005 each remained standing following fires.

"In order to reach people, to inspire people, we need to deal with this phenomenon and - where necessary - regulate it," Merkel told lawmakers on Wednesday. The role social networks Facebook and Twitter play in spreading false and malicious information has shot up Merkel's agenda after the shock election of US Republican candidate Donald Trump as president.

Social bots are software programs that mimic human behaviour on social media sites, such as by publishing messages or liking posts. They can be used to spread erroneous information and muddy the debate. Some critics say the proliferation of fake news helped sway the US election in Trump's favor.

With the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) having chipped away at support for Merkel's conservatives by attacking her open-door refugee policy, alarm is growing over the influence of bots and fake news on potential voters.

Officials believe around half of the 200 wildfires swept across central and northern parts of the country while other outbreaks around the nation have been brought under control. Around 300 firefighters are working around the clock to bring the situation under control and 800 police officers have been deployed in Haifa to stop looters taking advantage of the tragedy.

Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: "Every fire that was caused by arson, or incitement to arson, is terrorism by all accounts – and we will treat it as such. Whoever tries to burn parts of Israel will be punished for it severely." Internal security minister Gilad Erdan dubbed the fires as “arson terrorism” and confirmed eight people had been arrested after "flammable materials and liquids" were found in certain areas.

He added: “There is no difference between arson and incitement to commit terrorism." Police chief Roni Alsheich said it was "safe to assume… it is politically-motivated".

Mr Farage also took a swipe at his nemesis and arch-federalist Jean-Claude Juncker as the EU faces up to an existential crisis. Speaking to Italian TV station Agenzia Televisiva Nazionale, the 52-year-old said: "The President-elect has a great deal of respect for Brexit Britain. I am not sure what he thinks about the European Union but it doesn’t really matter.

"In a few years time the European Union won’t exist anyway. This isn’t working. We can talk about the euro, we can talk about Angela Merkel’s migrant policy." Speaking from the European Parliament in Strasbourg the MEP continued: "We can talk about a whole range of issues. I have been here [the European Parliament] 17 years I am very pro-European.

"I love all the different European countries but this centralist model of government in buildings like this isn’t working. In the long term we are returning to nation state democracy and I think that is the big message that comes from 2016. We’ll have a Europe of friendship, a Europe of trade, a Europe of trade and a Europe of cooperation."

Mr Farage’s damning criticism of the EU comes after a new study has revealed EU membership cost Britain £2 billion more last year than previously thought. Calculations by think tank Global Britain reveal that the UK’s net contribution in 2015 was £10.4 billion instead of the £8.5 billion previously claimed by the Government. Ukip leadership candidate Suzanne Evans said that the figures underline her case for Britain leaving "within weeks" by repealing the 1972 Act.

A new crisis is now happening all around us affecting trees. It appears that millions, hundreds of millions even, of trees are dying in North America and around the world from a basket of reasons, promising to completely and permanently alter the landscape and environment around us.

Tree are among the most abundant and the most critical organisms on planet earth, and only recently have we been able to assess just how many trees inhabit planet earth. A study published in 2015 gave us this picture:

“A new study published in Nature estimates the planet has 3.04 trillion trees. The research says 15.3 billion trees are chopped down every year. It also estimates that 46% of the world’s trees have been cleared over the past 12,000 years.”

The web of life cannot be damaged in one area without the effects being felt elsewhere. Just as bees and other insects are dying off en masse by a number of causes, some known and unknown, trees are also harbingers of the health of our planet. With such little attention given to the state of this earth and so much attention given to the human and political dramas that occupy our attention 24/7, will the human race wake up and react in time to avert a major planetary crisis?

A long strip of deep and fertile soil pinched by sharply rising mountains, the valley has more than doubled its output of produce in recent decades and now grows well over half of America’s leaf lettuce. Yet one place the valley’s bounty of antioxidants does not often appear is on the tables of the migrant workers who harvest it.

Public health officials here describe a crisis of poverty and malnutrition among the tens of thousands of farmworkers and their families who tend to the fields of lettuce, broccoli, celery, cauliflower and spinach, among many other crops, in an area called the salad bowl of the nation.

More than a third of the children in the Salinas City Elementary School District are homeless; overall diabetes rates are rising and projected to soar; and 85 percent of farmworkers in the valley are overweight or obese, partly because unhealthy food is less costly, said Marc B Schenker, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who studies the health of farmworkers.

“The people who grow our food can’t afford to eat it, and they are sicker because of it,” said Joel Diringer, a public health specialist and advocate for farmworkers. “It’s an incredible irony that those who work in the fields all day long don’t have access to the fresh produce that they harvest.”

Don’t get me wrong – I am a very big believer in working hard and contributing something of value to society, and those that work the hardest and contribute the most should be able to reap the rewards.  In this article I am in no way, shape or form criticizing true capitalism, because if true capitalism were actually being practiced all over the planet we would have far, far less poverty today. 

Instead, our planet is dominated by a heavily socialized debt-based central banking system that systematically transfers wealth from hard working ordinary citizens to the global elite.  Those at the very top of the pyramid know that they are impoverishing everyone else, and they very much intend to keep it that way.

The borrower is the servant of the lender, and the global elite have used various forms of debt to turn the rest of the planet into their debt slaves. As debt levels race higher and higher all over the planet, the elite are using the magic of compound interest to grab a bigger and bigger share of the pie. Given enough time, those at the very top would have virtually everything and the rest of us would have virtually nothing. 

The darker reality, the authors suggest, is that lying to children, even about something fun and frivolous, could undermine their trust in their parents and leave them open to “abject disappointment” when they eventually discover that magic is not real.

Kathy McKay, a clinical psychologist at the University of New England, Australia and co-author, said: “The Santa myth is such an involved lie, such a long-lasting one, between parents and children, that if a relationship is vulnerable, this may be the final straw. If parents can lie so convincingly and over such a long time, what else can they lie about?”

Levelling with your children so close to the big event may put a bit of a dampener on festivities, but parents must sometimes take the long view, according to McKay. “There is potential for children to be harmed in these lies,” she said.

And astonishingly it has been agreed that the EU should also be prepared to act autonomously in cases where NATO is not willing to take the lead. However the EU is celebrating this victory claiming the security situation in and around Europe has worsened significantly in recent years, due to challenges like terrorism, hybrid threats or cyber and energy insecurity.

It says no country is able to tackle defence alone and “solidarity and resilience require the EU to stand and act together”. European politicians have now guaranteed at least £420 million-a-year in funding to set up their new European wide army which will be a "rapid response" team.

They suggest devoting an initial two per cent of the overall GDP to defence, establishing multinational forces and EU headquarters to plan and command crisis management operations, and enabling the EU to act where NATO is unwilling to do so.

After Mr Fillon's shock victory in the primary elections, he has emerged as the favourite to be president of the country. The former prime minister said Europe is in crisis and Brexit is a direct consequence of a lack of initiative from European leaders and particularly hapless Francois Hollande, the current president of France. 

Mr Fillon has made it clear that he believes there should be a no-nonsense approach to Brexit and has called for a fast divorce. He said: “Today Europe at best is inefficient, useless, out fashioned and at worst is an obstacle to our development and our freedom.”

...the most insidious excuse being pushed by the establishment Left (consisting of party leaders and much of the mainstream media) is the so-called “fake news” trope. No one denies that publishing articles about made-up events, and presenting that as real news, is a terrible thing, which unfortunately gets “shared” without people taking the responsibility of verifying information.

But the censorship crusade being carried out by MSM is about more than actual fake news. It is a vehicle for silencing alternative media and dissenting voices that represent a threat to the narrative. The target is not just the “alt-right” but alternative news and views from a range of political categories.

Alternative media represent a choice for people who are fed up with the system, and it is the people’s responsibility to research the news in order to achieve an accurate perspective on events. It is not up to a self-proclaimed “Ministry of Truth” – laden with the same corrupt baggage that acted as proverbial buoy for Hillary Clinton during the campaign – to dictate what is right and wrong.