It may seem counterintuitive, given the close relationship between Ms Merkel and Barack Obama, the former US president, but another Merkel win in September could play straight into Mr Trump’s hands. A win for Martin Schulz of the Socialist Party (SDP), on the other hand, could lead to a far-reaching swing in the balance of global power. In the past few weeks, Mr Schulz, on the back of eloquent attacks on the US president and his policies, has pulled ahead of Ms Merkel in the polls for the first time in six years.

In early February, Germany announced a new record trade surplus: $281 billion, versus $210 billion for China. Peter Navarro, Mr Trump’s chief trade adviser, has accused Germany of exploiting the “grossly undervalued” implied Deutschmark exchange rate to the detriment of both its European neighbours and the US. Effectively he is saying that Germany has gamed the whole European project in order to ensure extreme competitiveness for German exports.

If Ms Merkel wins, which must still be the base-case scenario, Germany is likely to retrench in the face of pressure from the new US administration. Under this scenario, Germany would resist reflationary pressures, maintain its bloated trade surplus and regard the ever-greater competitiveness of its corporations as the response to Mr Trump’s America-first policies.

This would initially propel the continent towards a two-tier eurozone, as Germany and other strong northern European nations begin to cut ties to peripheral southern European countries, a structure that has been championed by Wolfgang Schäuble, Ms Merkel’s finance minister. It would, almost inevitably, be the eventual death knell for the entire European project.

There could even be greater financial integration within the eurozone, with the prospect of banking union and a unified system of deposit guarantees. Mr Schulz might even decide that Germany has lived long enough in the shadow of the second world war and undertake its own military and defence operations, rather than continuing to subcontract them to the US.

The Germans must be aware of twin uncertainties: the tenuous support of a Trump-led US and the worrying proximity of Russian president Vladimir Putin’s Red Army to Berlin. It would be an interesting irony if the remilitarisation of Germany were led by a social democrat. What is clear is that Germany holds the key to the future of Europe in its hands, and we should all be watching the polls carefully as September approaches.

On Sunday Gibraltar’s chief minister, Fabian Picardo, echoed comments made privately by British officials, suggesting that as the Spanish demand lay only in the draft negotiating guidelines from the council, it may drop out by the time they are due to be formally adopted by the 27 member states at a summit in Brussels on 29 April. “That’s just a draft at the moment,” Picardo said during an appearance on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. “Let’s see what comes back on 29 April.”

However senior EU diplomats, talking to the Guardian, have dismissed the suggestion that the EU will go soft on the issue of Gibraltar in the coming weeks, and warned that Spain had spent time and effort in cultivating support among the other 26 member states on the position. “Spain are taking this very, very seriously,” one diplomat said. “I think there is support across the board among the member states. Why not?”

On Sunday Theresa May informed Picardo that the British government would “never enter into arrangements under which the people of Gibraltar would pass under the sovereignty of another state against their freely and democratically expressed wishes”. But EU officials said they were surprised May had not mentioned the future of Gibraltar in her six-page letter notifying the EU of the UK’s intention to leave the union, delivered to the European council’s president, Donald Tusk, on Wednesday.

For the last fifteen years, the Sanhedrin has hosted a full-dress reenactment of the Pesach (Passover) sacrifice in Jerusalem. The Temple ceremony on Pesach was perhaps even more important than the one held on Yom Kippur since every Jew was required to actively participate.

The Sanhedrin reenactments have included Kohanim (men of the priestly caste) dressed in authentic vestments, accompanied by the proper musical instruments, and utilizing vessels that have been created for use in the Third Temple. A lamb is slaughtered and roasted on a model altar, under the supervision of a veterinary inspector.

Last year, the reenactment held on the Mount of Olives overlooking the Temple Mount was attended by approximately 1,000 people. For this year’s reenactment scheduled for next Thursday, the Sanhedrin rented an open space at the Davidson Center, an archeological park adjacent to the Western Wall, owned by a corporation that is overseen by the Ministry of Construction and Housing. The organizers of the reenactment received permission from the corporation to hold the ceremony on their grounds on the condition they also received permission from the Israeli police. The police has refused to give permission  for the ceremony to take place.

Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the nascent Sanhedrin, emphasized the importance of this ceremony and what the battle represents. “This sacrifice brought us out of Egypt and we need it again to end this long exile completely. We believe that this is the only path to world peace: by recognizing the God of Abraham via the Jewish Temple,” Rabbi Weiss said. “We are requesting this from the world as Jews, living freely in our land.”

And, amid reports that Pyongyang is preparing another banned nuclear test, Haley said Washington would not settle for holding another UN debate. "I have no patience for it, and it is not helping anyone. And it's not about me. This administration has no patience for it," she said.

"Look, can we change the way North Korea thinks? No. They're not going to cave. China can, and that's the part we want to look at. I know China says they're worried about North Korea. I know China wants to see North Korea stop with the testing. Prove it. Prove it."

China, Haley said, could prove it is serious about restraining its rogue neighbor by enforcing an embargo against North Korean coal exports.

Pension funds all over America are woefully underfunded, and they have been pouring mind boggling amounts of money into very risky investments such as Internet stocks and commercial mortgages.  Just like with subprime mortgages in 2008, this is a crisis that everyone can see coming well in advance, and yet nothing is being done about it. By some estimates, unfunded liabilities would triple to upwards of $6 trillion if the prevailing yields on Treasuries were used.

On a day to day basis, Americans generally don’t think very much about pensions.  Most of those that have been promised pensions simply have faith that they will be there when they need them. We are perfectly primed for the greatest financial disaster in American history, and yet very few people are sounding the alarm.

This massive financial bubble is a ticking time bomb, and when it finally goes off it is going to wipe out virtually every pension fund in the United States.

"The EU-27 made good use of the run-up to the formal British application," Gabriel said. "We know what we want. We have a clear differentiated negotiating position and will give the EU Commission a strong mandate."

The EU, and not Germany, will negotiate the specifics of Brexit with London, but the views of Germany - the bloc's biggest member - will carry considerable weight. Now that the process is officially underway, the next step is for the other 27 EU countries to agree a mandate on the principles according to which the bloc will attempt to hammer out a favorable agreement. That should take place by late April.

Gabriel said negotiations would be carried out without acrimony. "The sentence 'Let's stay friends,' which often rings hollow in personal relationships, is the right one here," Gabriel said. "We need one another. We should do everything to continue to maintain good, friendly relations with London in the future. But just as in a romantic relationship between individuals, there are limits to how far the post-Brexit friendship between the EU and the UK will go."

Many had been hoping that the spell of political correctness would be broken by the election of Donald Trump, but that obviously has not happened. The forces of political correctness still have a stranglehold on our education system, on all forms of entertainment, on our legal system, and on most of the politicians in both political parties.

The unwritten rules of political correctness are shifting and changing all the time, and if you don’t keep up with them the penalties can be extremely severe. If you do or say the wrong thing at the wrong time, you could lose your friends, you could lose your job, and you could potentially even lose your reputation. In fact, there have been numerous people over the past year that have been publicly crucified in the court of public opinion for doing or saying something that was not politically-correct. And with each passing day, the forces of political correctness take a little bit more ground.

Ultimately, political correctness is a tool that progressives use to silence the opposition. They want to make it a crime to think or say anything that they might find offensive, and to a substantial degree it is working. Our founders intended for us to permanently have a right to free speech, but now we have moved into a time when saying the wrong thing can get you brutally persecuted.

I would like to be optimistic that we can start to roll back the forces of political correctness, but as I noted at the beginning of this article, they have control of our schools, our courts, our entertainment and most of our political leaders. But of course we can never give up the fight, because if they win life in America will ultimately become a complete and total nightmare.

Two months after the inauguration of President Trump, indications are mounting that the United States military is deepening its involvement in a string of complex wars in the Middle East that lack clear endgames.

Rather than representing any formal new Trump doctrine on military action, however, American officials say that what is happening is a shift in military decision-making that began under President Barack Obama. On display are some of the first indications of how complicated military operations are continuing under a president who has vowed to make the military “fight to win.”

Hiroshi Imazu, chair of the Research Commission on Security for the LDP, and former Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera, submitted the proposal on missile defense to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Anxiety in Japan follows a recent string of North Korean missile tests. Earlier this month, Pyongyang fired four intermediate-range ballistic missiles, three of which landed less than 200 nautical miles off the Japanese coast.

Abe said that his government would seriously consider the proposal. "We assess that the threat (from North Korea) has advanced to a new stage, we take it seriously. This assessment is shared by the United States," he said Thursday. "We intend to grasp today's proposal firmly."

Jeff Kingston, director of Asian studies at Temple University in Tokyo, told CNN Abe is in a "pretty good position" to push the changes through the Diet, Japan's parliament. "In many different ways Abe is pushing the envelope against postwar norms and values," Kingston said. However, "recent (North Korean) tests put wind in his sails and given that he controls both houses of the Diet he's in a pretty good position."