He said that allowing "safe space" and "no-platforming" policies to prevail at universities will lead to a “slippery slope”. Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he said: “I think it’s important that students going through our higher education system do learn to be resilient and deal with controversial opinions, to deal with views that challenge their most profoundly held beliefs or views that simply make them uncomfortable.”

“Because if we fail to do that we will soon be on a slippery slope that ends up with a society that is less able to make scientific breakthroughs, less able to be innovative and frankly less able also to resist injustice. We need people to be able to deal with the uncomfortable.”

Earlier this year, the Chinese government announced plans to start a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold. The contract will enable the country's trading partners to pay with gold or to convert yuan into gold without the necessity to keep money in Chinese assets or turn it into US dollars. The new benchmark will reportedly allow exporters, such as Russia, Iran or Venezuela to avoid US sanctions by trading oil in yuan.

The end of US dollar hegemony has been a consistent message from Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulatory reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies,” Putin said two months ago during the BRICs summit in Xiamen.

Wells Fargo Securities head of equity strategy, Christopher Harvey, said people should pay close attention to spill over in 2018. 'There is a significant amount of froth in the cryptomarkets. We do think that if that froth comes out, it will start to spillover,' he warned on CNBC's Trading Nation.

He added: 'What we're worried about is froth coming out of that market, and that's starting to affect equities. You're seeing it a little bit, but just not to a large degree. And, it's something to watch out for in 2018.' Banks in several countries, including Singapore, have warned against investing in cryptocurrencies, saying that recent surges are driven by speculation, and there is a high risk of a sharp fall in prices.

Mr Johnson said he has seen too many ‘worrying’ incidents of groups trying to ‘stifle those who do not agree with them’. He warned institutions that they have a duty to intervene and ensure differing points of view can be heard – however controversial.

And speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Johnson said students at one university had created an extensive list of 'trigger words' and demanded any books containing them be removed from the library. 

A new regulator, the Office for Students, will come into being in April 2018 and will have the power to punish universities which do not adequately safeguard free speech. Those falling short could be fined or even deregistered – rendering them effectively unable to operate. It follows incidents in which student unions and societies have banned speakers because they deemed their views ‘offensive’.

Many student unions believe universities need to be ‘safe spaces’ where young people can be shielded from views they may find upsetting. But critics say being shielded from the realities of the world does not prepare students for the challenges they face after graduation.

Leader of the free world? More like a miscreant whose overbearing megalomaniacal ego is no longer tolerable to virtually everyone else. Even close US allies among the NATO military alliance voted against Washington’s position. Britain, France, and Germany joined with other international powers, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, and Brazil, to repudiate Trump’s decision taken earlier this month to recognize Jerusalem.

There was a time perhaps when the US could command global leadership. That self-declared global authority was always over-rated, but there was a veneer of plausible appearance and credibility in Washington’s claims. Now, Washington sounds like a pathetic, deluded narcissist, exposed by its own blatant contempt for the very principles it espouses to uphold: democratic rights, free speech, the rule of law.

This week at the UN General Assembly, the United States is no longer a world leader. It is more like a rogue state whose delusional greatness is belied by sordid acts of bribery, bullying, and intimidation. A tyrant whose time is over. Most telling is that Washington’s threats of intimidation and “name taking” no longer have power. The threats are seen as just more bluffing and puffing by a washed-up superpower.

The grand coalition of Germany’s two biggest parties would save Ms Merkel from having to lead with a minority Government - a feat which has never been attempted in the history of the Bundestag. However, while the SPD have opened up to talks with Mrs Merkel’s CDU on January 7, the two have given themselves the minute deadline of mid-January to broker a deal.

The German political class are concerned under a minority government the stalwart German Chancellor will struggle to achieve in her fourth term – or be forced to pander to the far right Alternative for Germany (AFD) party who gained a foothold in the parliament in September’s vote.

Pierre Moscovici, the European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs admitted that the feeling about Europe is fragile in Germany.  Speaking to Bloomberg, he said: “There is something interesting about the election itself.” 

“That you can have full employment, you can have a huge success economically and still people wandering and a split vote. And also an extreme right party coming in inside Parliament which is the first time since World War 2. That proves that the feeling among the voters is still very fragile about Europe and about the economy.” 

He continued: “We pay for everything that they need. If they have a flood or any kind of a disaster, a hurricane in any of these countries, we are the ones that come to help them and pay for everything for them. And we protect them in every way. We have what is called foreign aid. Well, foreign aid means even if somebody catches a cold somewhere we send them a few dollars. There is nothing we don’t pay for in those countries. And the truth of the matter is we should have nothing to do with them.”

Trump himself advocated in a tweet on Friday that “after having foolishly spent $7 trillion in the Middle East, it is time to start rebuilding our country!”

At the same meeting Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said that NATO has doubled the number of its military drills since 2012 in the vicinity of Russia's borders, noting that Russia is carefully monitoring what it considers hostile NATO build-up and intensified surveillance operations along Russian borders.

The defense minister further indicated that the number of NATO-member country troops stationed near Russian borders has tripled, growing from 10 to 40 thousand in three years, saying "In the Baltic states and Poland, four battalion-tactical groups, an armored brigade of the US Army, headquarters of NATO multinational divisions in Poland and Romania are deployed."

The former Nasa biochemist, based in California, has become a leading figure in the growing “biohacker” movement, which involves loose collectives of scientists, engineers, artists, designers, and activists experimenting with biotechnology outside of conventional institutions and laboratories.

“As human beings we’re very big on freedoms, equality, equal rights. What’s more of an equal right than being able to control what genes we have? I think people should be able to choose that. I’m not saying anything I can do can help treat people, but treating things genetically is the ultimate medicine.”