Politicians in Germany generally keep quiet on the domestic politics of other states. But as Trump’s run for public office became ever more serious, senior politicians in Berlin couldn’t stop themselves expressing their distaste. Frank-Walter Steinmeier, then Foreign Minister now President, described the brash billionaire as a “hate preacher”. His SPD colleague Sigmar Gabriel, meanwhile, labelled him a “threat to peace”.

Top of the list of German concerns about a Trump administration were his insinuations that the US would no longer automatically come to the defence of Europe in the event of an attack on a NATO member. And the fact that he repeatedly barracked Germany for its trade surplus with the US in his first few weeks in office did nothing to slow pulses on the Spree.

A year after Trump took office, the dust has settled somewhat. But, with the US still not having an ambassador in Berlin, confusion remains over how exactly he wants to deal with Germany. “In Europe there is a realization that we cannot rely on our US partner anymore. One beneficial effect has been that this has urged Europeans to get their act together.”

Dr Michael Wohlgemuth, a foreign policy expert at Open Europe Berlin, points to a renewed impetus in EU common defence plans which have taken place over the past 12 months, with Germany as one of the main driving forces.

All other refugees in the world, a heartbreaking 65.6 million in 2016, are handled by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The funding that could go to the UNHCR to help the Rohingya or the millions made homeless in the civil wars in Syria, Iraq, Yemen or throughout Africa, is instead being spent on the great-grandchildren of the original Palestinian refugees of ’48.

I can’t help wonder whether the preferential treatment of the Palestinians over millions of their Muslim brethren is because they point a judgmental finger at Jews as the source of their sorrows.

UNRWA has cultivated a feeling of entitlement and need. Instead of helping the Palestinians become self-sufficient members of the societies where they live, the UN body has created a welfare culture and dependency.

Iran has the fastest-aging population of any country in the world, indeed, the fast-aging population of any country in history. It has the highest rate of venereal disease infection and the highest rate of infertility of any country in the world. It has a youth unemployment rate of 35% (adjusted for warehousing young people in state-run diploma mills). 

And worst of all, it has run out of water.

We might be observing the birth of Iranian democracy in the protests of the past few weeks, but it is more likely that we are watching the slow-motion train wreck of a once-great nation in all its gory detail. As I noted in an Asia Times analysis this morning, the most violent protests, eg the burning of a police station near Isfahan, happened in the boondocks where water has run out.

The river that runs through Isfahan, a legendary city of gardens in the desert, literally has run dry. Some Iranian officials warn that tens of millions of Iranians will have to leave their homes for lack of water. The country has used up 70% of its groundwater and it's literally drying up major rivers to maintain consumption. It's the worst ecological disaster in modern history.

Add up the costs of dealing with the water emergency, the bank crisis and the pension crisis, and Iran is close to broke. And that's just the beginning: The average working-age Iranian today comes from a family of seven children, but has fewer than two children. That means that when the older generation retires, there will be fewer than two new entrants into the workforce to pay for the pensions of seven retirees.

The demographic crisis hasn't hit yet, and when it does, it will be the financial equivalent of an asteroid hitting Iran. In other words, Iran's exhaustion of physical as well as human capital may have pushed it past the point of no return.

During the past few weeks, Israeli municipalities have raced to bypass the looming supermarkets law, passing and bolstering bylaws allowing businesses to remain open on Shabbat. “The supermarkets bill is meaningless. It is up to the mayors to enforce it and I say in no uncertain terms that I have no intention of sending inspectors to enforce it,” Ramat Gan Mayor Yisrael Zinger said Tuesday. “We are a liberal city, and we believe in allowing people to live their lives according to their own beliefs. This is what creates the fabric of life in the city,” he said.

Prior to the vote on the bill, Holon Mayor Moti Sasson pledged “to do everything within my power to preserve the status quo in the city, as part of which some businesses will be open on Shabbat for the benefit of the residents.” Givatayim Mayor Ran Kunik also announced he would not enforce the new law, telling reporters he is determined to preserve the status quo in his city. “Givatayim knows what’s best for its residents better than any minister,” he said.

The Athens metro, which is used by almost one million people every day, was shutdown in the strike, prompting traffic chaos in the capital. The bill, set for parliamentary approval on Monday, would restructure family benefits, introduce a new process for foreclosures on overdue loans and make it more difficult to call a strike. Angry locals marched through the capital, holding banners and chanting “hands off strikes!”

Protestors clashed with police outside the parliament building, who responded by firing teargas. The draft law which is set to be approved by parliament next week has infuriated Greeks, who have seen their incomes fall and living conditions worsen since the Mediterranean country first sought international aid to stave off bankruptcy in 2010, and required another two bailouts thereafter.

Syriza, the dominant party in the government elected in 2015, has its roots in left-wing labour activism and its role in the new reforms has prompted widespread criticism from supporters. Retired ship officer George Papaspyropoulos, said: “This essentially abolishes the right to strike… such things only happened during the junta,” referring to the military dictatorship that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974.

Two sentences from Angela Merkel come to mind. One, focused on domestic politics, was an entreaty: "We can do it." It was a pledge and a plea to all Germans in the face of the huge influx of Syrian refugees who entered Germany in 2015.

The other, focused on foreign policy, was earthshaking. "The times in which we could completely depend on others are, to a certain extent, over," Merkel said on May 28 during an appearance in Munich. She did everything she could to make the sentence seem as offhand and trivial as possible. She wasn't speaking in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin - she was at a festival in Munich, the smell of beer hanging in the air. She hemmed and hawed, she relativized, toned down her language and spoke of "others," even though it was clear that she was referring to the United States.

Still, the sheer impact of her words was undeniable. The German chancellor had essentially announced the end of an alliance that had guaranteed Germany's security for half a century and shaped its politics and values. When she made the statement in May, Germany was in the middle of an election campaign, which informed the manner in which it was interpreted and discounted.

Even today, its radicality has been largely ignored - perhaps because to do otherwise would be too painful or unsettling. Germans prefer to avoid such introspection. The US remains our most important partner, government officials are fond of saying, and the NATO alliance is still intact. That may be true. But for how much longer?

In a veiled shot at Washington Post-owner Bezos, Trump repeated skepticism that he first expressed in a tweet late last year about Amazon's impact on the US Postal Service as it struggles to keep up with all the online orders while sinking into financial insolvency.

Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer? Should be charging MUCH MORE!

— Donald J Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 29, 2017

Officers made a review of every comment on the page after a member of the public complained that a number of posts referred to the race and religion of the 18 people convicted following the operation. A spokesman from Northumbria Police said: “As a result of a complaint, we can confirm we looked into a number of comments posted on the force’s Facebook page.

“Following an investigation, which has now concluded, we spoke to two males as voluntary attenders and visited a further four people in their homes, and provided them with words of advice.

Campaigners and MPs had demanded that the crimes of groomers who target white girls be treated as “racially aggravated”, urging Britain’s Attorney-General to review the Newcastle gang members’ sentences after claims that the racist nature of the crimes was not reflected in their punishment.

But despite the abuse having been labeled “profoundly racist” by former director of public prosecutions Lord MacDonald, members of the grooming gang escaped the harsher sentences which accompany racially motivated crimes, with Judge Penny Moreland claiming victims were targeted “not because of their race, but because they were young, impressionable, naive and vulnerable”.

With attempts to form a government in their fourth month, following an unexpectedly poor election performance by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats, it’s in Berlin that things are looking desperate. Never mind trying to lead Europe. It’s not clear that Berlin can even lead Germany. Many in the country now associate the decision to briefly open the country’s doors to refugees with a loss of control (Kontrollverlust).

Some even go further, claiming that it was not a loss of control, but a decision not to control (Kontrollverzicht). And indeed, Germany’s judicial system, municipal administrations and regional authorities are at breaking point. They do not have the capacity to handle the sheer volume of asylum seekers. 

For a stability-centered society like Germany, the perception that state institutions are losing control and cannot deliver, is political dynamite. And the refugee issue is just one way in which Kontrollverlust is being felt.

She said her conservative Christian Democrats would "work constructively to find the necessary compromises but we are also aware that we need to execute the right policies for our country". After her earlier attempt at forging a coalition with two smaller parties collapsed, she is now pinning her hopes on renewing an alliance with the Social Democrats (SPD).

SPD leader Martin Schulz also spoke of "big obstacles" as he arrived for the final day of preliminary talks on whether there is enough common ground to move on to formal coalition negotiations. He said his party wanted to ensure that the new government committed "above all to working toward renewal of the European Union".