Fred Trump, Donald’s father, who was a strict taskmaster with all his five children, told his three sons to be “killers”. After graduation from high school in 1923, Fred started to work full-time in construction. He realised quickly that his German origins could be a hindrance, so he pretended that his parents were Swedish, though his mother spoke English with a thick German accent and baked Apfeltorte for family reunions.

Trump’s success in the casino and property business was down to his early understanding of the power of branding. “Trump” lends itself to big lettering on buildings because it suggests luck and success. Like his father, though, he thought his German origins might not endear him to possible backers. He stuck to Fred’s tale and wrote in his autobiography, “Trump: The Art of the Deal”, that his father was of Swedish descent. Challenged on this point in an interview with Vanity Fair in 1990, he replied: “My father was not German; my father’s parents were German… Swedish, and really sort of all over Europe.”

Were he to become president, Mr Trump would not be the first occupant of the White House of German descent. Dwight Eisenhower’s family was originally called Eisenhauer and hailed from Karlsbrunn, close to the German-French border. Herbert Hoover’s ancestors were called Huber and came from Baden in southern Germany. They both made little of their origins — but they did not go so far as to invent new ones.

But while the leaders of all 28 EU member states will have to sign up to the agreement before it is finished the European Parliament will still have to pass legislation to enact it - and MEPs will not be party to any legally binding deal. The European Parliament will be asked to pass EU laws on the so-called 'emergency brake' on migrant benefits and reforms to how child benefit is paid to migrant workers.

It was made clear today the legislation will not be put to MEPs until after Britain's referendum - expected in June. The potential roadblock to Mr Cameron's deal comes from the so-called 'co-decision' powers that hand the 751 MEPs veto powers over certain laws.

David Cameron looks set to call the EU referendum on Friday after being warned that he faced a Cabinet revolt if he attempted to wait until after the weekend in order to gag eurosceptic ministers. Downing Street on Monday agreed to hold a Cabinet meeting on Friday if, as expected, Mr Cameron is able to secure a final deal with EU leaders at a Brussels summit.

Mr Cameron will use the Cabinet meeting to lift “collective responsibility” rules, meaning that eurosceptic members will finally be able to speak out and say that they are backing the campaign to leave the EU. The Prime Minister made the decision after being warned that Iain Duncan Smith, the eurosceptic Work and Pensions Secretary, was preparing to “go out all guns blazing” on Saturday if the gag was not lifted as soon as the deal was finalised.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, on Monday warned that there is a “real” risk that the talks could break up at the summit. “The risk of break-up is real because this process is indeed very fragile,” he said. “Handle with care. What is broken cannot be mended.”

"A speculative attack could come very fast. If I were a politician in Italy and I was confronted by this sort of insolvency risk I would want to go back to my own currency as fast as possible, because that is the only way to avoid going bankrupt,” he told The Telegraph. The German Council has called for a “sovereign insolvency mechanism” even though this overturns the financial principles of the post-war order in Europe, deeming such a move necessary to restore the credibility of the "no-bailout" clause in the Maastricht Treaty. Professor Bofinger issued a vehement dissent.

The plan has the backing of the Bundesbank and most recently the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, who usually succeeds in imposing his will in the eurozone. Sensitive talks are under way in key European capitals, causing shudders in Rome, Madrid and Lisbon.

At the Munich Security Conference, the prime topics are the refugee crisis, the Syrian conflict, Russian aggression and the potential dissolution of the European Union's very structure. Top European leaders repeatedly lamented that 2015 saw all of Europe’s problems deepen, and unanimously predicted that in 2016 they would get even worse.

“The question of war and peace has returned to the continent,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the audience, indirectly referring to Russian military interventions. “We had thought that peace had returned to Europe for good."

Several European officials told me that there was little expectation that President Barack Obama, in his last year in office, would make any significant policy changes to address what European governments see as an existential set of crises that can’t wait for a new administration in Washington.

But then the price of oil started crashing and the global economy began to slow down significantly. Energy company debt makes up somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the junk bond market, and the credit rating downgrades for that sector are coming fast and furious. But it isn’t just the energy industry that is seeing a massive wave of defaults, debt restructurings and bankruptcy filings.

Just like with subprime mortgages in 2008, investors are starting to wake up and realize that the paper that they are holding is not worth a whole lot. So now investors are rushing for the exits and we are starting to see panic on a level that we have not witnessed since the last financial crisis. Just look at what has been happening in recent days. Investors took nearly 500 million dollars out of the largest junk bond ETF (iShares HYG) last week alone.

We keep making the same mistakes, but we never seem to learn from history. In fact, the mainstream media keeps telling us that this new financial crisis “isn’t 2008″ over and over again. Even though the exact same patterns are happening once again, they still believe that this time will somehow be different. And to a certain extent that is actually true. This current crisis is not going to be the same as the last one. Eventually, it is going to prove to be even worse than the last one once everything is all said and done.

“Anytime a head of state, member of Congress, or the most conservative member of the US Supreme Court is found dead, an extensive autopsy and toxicology examination should be both immediate and mandatory,” said Gheen. “The horrid reaction and comments about his death expressed by many liberals online illustrate that Scalia was hated by many people.”

Gheen said Scalia’s death “hands the power of the Supreme Court to the modern left for the first time in American history. The court can now vote, even without a replacement of Scalia, to radically change the United States of America,” he said. “Scalia’s death means the Supreme Court is now very likely to rubber stamp Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty orders, tear down Republican drawn districts in many states including North Carolina, and take deep left turns on abortion, gun rights, or anything the liberals have ever dreamed of. Scalia was a solid vote against Obama’s immigration orders to be decided by April of this year.

“We do not contend there is a conspiracy, we contend that there should be no doubts, and the way authorities and the media are rushing conclusions will leave major doubts and legitimate concerns about a death that could lead to a radical political transformation of America to the left,” said Gheen.

An assortment of Syrian rebels backed by the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are fighting to hold them back. Kurdish forces allied both to Washington and Moscow are taking advantage of the chaos to extend Kurdish territories. The Islamic State has snatched a couple of small villages, while all the focus was on the other groups.

Ahead of a supposed pause in the hostilities negotiated by world powers and due to be implemented later in the week, the conflict seems only to be escalating. Turkey joined in over the weekend, firing artillery across its border at Kurdish positions for a second day Sunday and prompting appeals from the Obama administration to both Turks and Kurds to back down.

Syria’s civil war long ago mutated into a proxy conflict, with competing world powers backing the rival Syrian factions almost since the earliest days of the armed rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad. But perhaps never before have the dangers — or the complications — of what amounts to a mini world war been so apparent as in the battle underway for control of Aleppo.

“There’s a spiral of insecurity here that is not being managed,” said Salman Shaikh, a political consultant whose Shaikh Group is engaged in mediation efforts in the Syrian war. “What we are seeing is a classic, really complicated balance-of-power struggle that could become a very dangerous situation.”

But more is at stake than the outcome of Syria’s war. The Aleppo offensive is affirming Moscow’s stature as a dominant regional power across the heart of the Middle East. The advances by Shiite Iraqi and Lebanese militias are extending the sway of Iran far beyond the traditional Shiite axis of influence into Sunni areas of northern Syria.

Speaking to Schulz, Patriarch Kirill warned that a confrontation between “two major powers” with “immense destructive force” had the potential to devastate “the whole world,” calling for an improvement in relations between Russia and the United States as soon as possible. “A large-scale war should be averted at all costs,” he said, adding that it should be the “number one priority for the Americans, the Russians, and many other people with a sensible perspective on what is happening.”

The Patriarch stressed that most people in the US are “Christians who share the same values and belong to the same global Christian family” as Russians, urging the two nations to use this cultural affinity “to build bridges, rather than deepen the divide” between the two countries.

Addressing the crisis in the Middle East, the Patriarch called on all countries seeking to put an end to the wars in Syria and Iraq, as well as to defeat terrorist groups, “to join their efforts for the sake of [this] goal.”

According to the Patriarch, the current situation in the Middle East requires joint action by all parties concerned, including “Russia, the United States, Western Europe, and some Arab countries.”

Saudi Arabia is among one of the closest allies to the US, but its role in the Middle-East has thus far primarily been a destructive one. It is currently engaged in a bloody conflict in Yemen, in which civilians are a daily victim, yet despite the resemblances the Yemen conflict has to Syria, it does not draw as much criticism from the US-led international coalition, nor the media. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia has taken on the same role the US fulfills in Syria; they are the leader of a Sunni coalition of states carrying out air strikes.

As a close ally to the US, it receives no criticism for civilian casualties or other acts of aggression from western leaders, essentially enjoying a carte blanche for the fulfillment of its military ambitions in the region. Saudi Arabia has now turned its sights onto Syria, shaking all hopes of peace.

On 13 February, days before a proposed ceasefire is due to take effect in Syria, Saudi Arabia confirmed it has begun sending troops and aircraft to Turkey's Incirlik base for a possible joint intervention in Syria. Saudi's plan for involvement in Syria has been thinly veiled as an offer to join the war against the Sunni terrorist group Islamic State; however the Saudi regime has thus far expressed more hostility towards Assad, with their foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, stating "There will be no Bashir al-Assad in the future."

Russia’s safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor has officially announced on Wednesday that American producers have failed to meet Russian biological standards, and that their corn and soybeans are “unfit for human consumption”.

“Since the products shipped from the United States pose a real threat to Russia, and the US guarantees are not valid, we reserve the right to introduce temporary restrictions on imports of US corn and soybeans,” said Rosselkhoznadzor spokesman Aleksey Alekseenko.

The Russian ban on unhealthy American produce is part of a bigger plan that Putin initiated earlier in the year where he has promised that Russia will become the world’s biggest exporter of non-GMO food and an “organic superpower”.

Saudi Arabia has also announced intentions of sending ground troops into Syria. This threatens an escalation in the war with Saudi Arabia and the NATO member Turkey fighting on the one side, and Syria's armed forces and Russia on the other. The consequences would be unpredictable. While not only having massively built up Turkey and Saudi Arabia's arsenals, and allowing AWACS airborne radar systems to be used in the Syrian war, Berlin is focusing on the period after combat has ended. Refugees are supposed to serve as channels for enhancing German influence in Syria.

The German government is also hoping to enhance its influence in Iraq through a Marshall Plan-like reconstruction effort. German military personnel are beginning to consider Russia's intervention in Syria as having prevented IS/Daesh from taking power in Damascus and carrying out offensives against other countries - including Israel.

Philip Hammond has predicted that a “contagion” of other European countries could call for their own referendums if Britain left the European Union. Mr Hammond warned that the rest of the EU would not want Britain to succeed outside the EU and that Europe would look “very less in our image.” His comments come as the Prime Minister struggles to maintain Cabinet unity ahead of a crunch summit in Brussels this week when he hopes to agree a deal for the European Union referendum.

Speaking to the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, Mr Hammond said: “What I think I fear and many people in Europe fear is that without Britain Europe would lurch very much in the wrong direction. Britain has been an enormously important influence in Europe, an influence for open markets, for free trade, for a less dirigiste approach to running the economy.

“We would be dealing with a Europe that looked very less in our image and I think the thing that we have to remember is that there is a very real fear in Europe that if Britain leaves, the contagion will spread.”

He added: “I think people who say we'd do a great deal with Europe if we left, forget that the countries remaining in the European Union would be looking over their shoulder at people in their own countries saying, 'if Britain can do it why can't we?' They will not have an interest in demonstrating that we can succeed outside the European Union.”

Mr Krichbaum’s warning came in a clash with senior Tory MP Sir Bill Cash, who accused the German politician of ‘threatening’ Britain. Sir Bill said Britain had fought Germany in two world wars to keep its freedoms and was not going to surrender them to a German-run Brussels now.

But the timing of his latest comments, so close to the referendum, is bound to be seen as provocative. Mr Krichbaum and Sir Bill had a sharp but courteous disagreement during a meeting in The Hague on Monday, but the gloves came off when they argued face-to-face afterwards. Mr Krichbaum, seen by some as Mrs Merkel’s anti-Cameron ‘attack dog’, claimed Britain’s economy would be devastated as a result of lost EU trade deals, saying: ‘You won’t be able to survive, trading conditions will not be in your favour.’

Sir Bill retorted: ‘Yes we can. We’ve been doing it for generations. We have a multi-billion-pound trading deficit with the EU: you run a multi-billion surplus. You need to sell us your cars and trucks. What do you take us for? Do you think we are incapable of running our own affairs?’ It was at this point that lawyer Mr Krichbaum, 51, a member of Mrs Merkel’s ruling Christian Democrat party retorted: ‘There is the question of tariffs.’

Indignant Sir Bill replied: ‘You’re not threatening me, are you?’ The Conservative MP told his German adversary: ‘There is history between our two countries. We have had to battle for our freedom over the last century. We should not and will not be governed by EU majority voting dominated by Germany.’

The row had started earlier at a formal meeting when Sir Bill declared: ‘Our people no longer trust the democratic structures of the EU. We are not going to be in the second tier of a two tier Europe effectively run by Germany.’ A defiant Sir Bill told The Mail on Sunday: ‘Mr Krichbaum’s reference to trade tariffs was a clear threat. It is basically Germany telling the British to get lost; it’s in their DNA to want to be on top.’