The “existential threats” Italy and France pose to the Eurozone mean Britain should be preparing for the end of the European Union early to ensure as little turmoil as possible, warns the managing director of Capital Economics.

Mr Bootle poured scorn on the continental club, pointing out that for all the talk of hard and soft Brexit, the European Union may well not exist within a few years anyway.

Matteo Renzi’s resignation as Italy’s Prime Minister after a crushing constitutional reform referendum defeat make it more likely Italy will leave the Euro. France’s electorate also faces the choice between a Thatcherite candidate in François Fillon and a far right nationalist in Marine Le Pen.

The economic expert is tipping Le Pen to claim victory and, if so, it is expected that France will follow Britain out of the European door, simultaneously leaving the Eurozone. If this happens, Mr Bootle claims there will be no point in Jean-Claude Juncker’s political bloc remaining in existence. He told the Telegraph: “It is possible that Italy will stumble on within the euro and muddle through its current political impasse. After all, that is what Italy usually does.” 

“But my view is that she is more likely to leave the euro within the next year or two. The boost that this would give to Italian competitiveness would see Italian GDP recover and this would prompt other southern countries to leave. Before long, the euro would be in tatters. Could the EU itself survive the collapse of its greatest project, along with the consequent recriminations and financial wranglings between Germany and the southern members? I doubt it.”

The first batch of the sheep were flown in on November 30 from Canada, where a Jewish couple had been raising the breed since 2014. Gil and Jenna Lewinsky had a chance meeting with a Jacob heritage farmer in Canada. Upon learning that Jacob sheep were extinct in Israel, the couple decided to raise the breed and bring them back home to where they traced their roots 5,000 years ago.

Meanwhile, a farmer named Guy Erlich is cultivating the Balm of Gilead, a plant mentioned in the Bible that is used for worship in the temple. The plant is known to have medicinal properties. It is also used in cosmetics. Erlich said the Balm of Gilead is “the first ingredient of the incense of the Holy Temple and since the Second Temple period, it says (it was used) as the anointing oil of the kings of Israel.”

Is Israel preparing for the third temple? Some groups have been doing a number of preparations, according to Liz Healy, an American who studies the Temple Mount. In an interview with CBN News, she said the Temple Institute has set up a red heifer farm. In the Old Testament times, the red heifer was burned and its ashes mixed with running water. The mixture was then used to purify the Jews so they could enter the temple, Healy explained.

“There is a group specifically that has re-established the Levitical priesthood,” Healy said. “They started a school a few months ago and they have a registry for those who are from the Levitical line that they could come and be trained and be ready to do the service in the temple.”

But even more concerning is that we're seeing authoritarian governments jumping onto the bandwagon, knowing that they can now use the banner of "fake news" to censor all sorts of content they don't like. A few weeks ago, China announced that it was ramping up internet surveillance efforts to "combat fake news," and now Iran appears to be doing the same thing.

The Iranian government has decided that in order to crack down on "fake news," it's going to expand regulations covering public news channels on the instant messaging app Telegram. As reported by Tasnim News, a hardline news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, Iranian ICT Minister Mahmoud Vaezi made the announcement at a press conference during the National Conference on Public Service. Vaezi cited the dangers “unofficial news channels” pose in Iran's rural and less developed regions, where fake news and misinformation have gained sizeable audiences.

So, for all of you complaining about fake news - a broad term with no real meaning, and which allows people to claim that anything they dislike, or anything with a small error in it counts as "fake news" - beware that you're basically handing an easy tool of censorship to governments like China and Iran that have long histories of stifling any kind of dissent. "Fake news" isn't necessarily a good thing, but freaking out about it is playing into the hands of censors worldwide.

"He made it very clear during the campaign and as president-elect I've heard him repeat it several times privately, if not publicly.” she continued. Congress passed a law in 1995 mandating that the US embassy be moved to Jerusalem. The law included a waiver allowing the President to postpone the move. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Barack Obama have all exercised this waiver throughout their presidencies, despite promises to move the embassy.

Conway implied that it was a mistake for past presidents not to move the embassy. “It is something that our friend in Israel, a great friend in the Middle East, would appreciate and something that a lot of Jewish-Americans have expressed their preference for," she said. "It is a great move. It is an easy move to do based on how much he talked about that in the debates and in the sound bites.”

During his campaign, Trump was strongly critical of the agreement that saw Iran agree to limits on its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of international sanctions on its oil industry and finances. In September 2015, the billionaire told a crowd: 'Any commander-in-chief worthy of defending this nation should be prepared to stand up on 20 January 2017 [inauguration day] and rip to shreds this catastrophic deal.' He also called the deal a 'disaster' and 'the worst deal ever negotiated'.  

This has led to panic among US allies in the Gulf, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan has claimed. John Brennan, the outgoing director of the CIA, last month warned that Trump's opposition to the Iran deal was the 'height of folly'. 'I think it would be disastrous,' he told the BBC. 'It really would: for one administration to tear up an agreement that a previous administration made would be almost unprecedented.'

He added that it 'could lead to a weapons program inside of Iran that could lead other states in the region to embark on their own programs with military conflict, so I think it would be the height of folly if the next administration were to tear up that agreement.' 

The uptick marks a turning point in defence spending, according to Fenella McGerty, principal analyst at Jane’s, after a “lacklustre” period with budgets  constrained by the aftermath of the financial crash. “Defence spending returned to a healthy rate of growth in 2016, kicking off what we expect to be a decade of stronger global defence spending,” said Ms McGerty. “It should recover to pre-financial crisis levels by 2018.”

Once again this year, the US retained its long-held place as the world’s biggest spender on defence, with an outlay of $622 billion, up 1 percent, more than three times second-placed China, at $191.8 billion, and a 6 percent increase on the previous year. The UK held its third place spot at £53.8 billion, just 0.5 percent higher than 2015’s level.

He said he expected the country’s economy to grow sharply over the next few months before crashing in scenes not witnessed since the inter-war period. Mr Dent predicted: “I think this is going to be a stock market peak of a lifetime followed by a crash very similar to the early 1930s. This happens once in a lifetime.

“I think this is the last rally in this bull market. You can't have stocks keep going up at this rate when earnings are going nowhere.” He said Mr Trump’s many election pledges, primarily creating millions of jobs in the country and kick-starting dying industrial towns, would prove to be his downfall. 

Once his promises go unfulfilled, Mr Dent explained, investors would panic, withdrawing their funds and creating a devastating economic collapse.  The top finance expert also said economic instability in Europe, particularly Italy, could have a knock-on effect in America.

The stock market is up too, as you would expect when you have more optimism. Optimistic business owners invest today because they expect tomorrow to be better. That investment creates jobs and stimulates the economy, creating a self-fulfilling path to prosperity. Individual companies can fail and succeed as usual, but the economy as a whole is likely to do well when optimism is high.

In the ancient world, the big problem was resources, not optimism. You didn’t always have access to raw materials, the right kind of labor, or markets. But in 2016 we can generally find anything we need and move anything to anywhere. The physical element of economics is largely solved. All that matters today is how we think about the economy. That’s the key element.