There was even a letter signed by 200 economists, highlighting the same dangers. This recalled the 1981 letter signed by 364 economists warning of the threat of recession – published just as the economy was starting to recover. Such an overwhelming consensus of economists might seem impressive. After all, how could so many different voices come to the same conclusion, yet still be wrong? Easily.

They aren’t umpteen different voices. These people are the victims of group-think. Moreover, there is a long history of the global economic establishment getting the most important issues of the day profoundly wrong. It did not foresee the fall of communism, the collapse of inflation or the global financial crisis.

The Treasury, backed up by most of the economic establishment, and opposed by only a small group of economists (of whom I was one), said that if we left the ERM, inflation would surge, interest rates would rise, and the economy would be damaged. In the event, we were forced out of the system on 16 September 1992, which was soon dubbed “Black Wednesday”. The result was that inflation fell, interest rates were cut and the economy recovered. Black Wednesday was soon renamed “Golden Wednesday”.

In the late 1990s, it was being debated whether the UK should join the euro. We were told by the great and the good that if we did not join, much of the City would decamp to Paris and Frankfurt, the Japanese carmakers would up sticks and our economy would be severely damaged. Meanwhile, in those countries which did join, the economy would surge forward, helped by the end of exchange rate uncertainty and the beginning of complete transparency about prices.

Why did the proponents of eurozone membership get this so blatantly wrong? Even though I believe that we should leave, I concede that there are some good arguments for remaining in the EU. But the fact that various economic bodies with a less than distinguished record of foreseeing the future warn us against leaving is not one of them.

A 5.6 quake is considered strong according to the Japanese 7-point scale. NHK reports there was no immediate tsunami warning, however. Japan Nuclear Power Association says a reactor at Tokai Nuclear Plant in Tokai village has "suspended operation" due to the quake. Tokyo Electric Power reports no incidents at the plant.

This comes exactly a month after a devastating quake hit the Japanese city of Kumamoto on the island of Kyushu, with 200 aftershocks rocking the country following the initial tremor of 6.5 magnitude. Forty-nine people lost their lives in the tragedy, with some 110,000 people being evacuated from areas close to the epicenter.

Crushing the dreams of "extreme monetary policy"-setters, Rajan goes on to discuss the sanity of 'helicopter money' warning that people will not be 'stimulated' to spend but will question: "What kind of world are we in when the central bank prints money and throws it out of the window?"

Blasphemy!!

Mr Rajan said that instead of seeking stimulus, people should recognise that slower growth was probably a part of ageing economies and perhaps the result of low interest rates, which protected inefficient companies from going out of business. Which makes no sense whatsoever... because the central planners are "magic" and can do anything, right? Just look at the 'markets'...

Famously rejecting the centralised, unaccountable, federal Europe of Delors, Margaret Thatcher proposed instead a wider, decentralised, outward-looking democratic Europe of independent, freely- trading and cooperating nation states:

“I want to start by disposing of some myths about my country, Britain, and its relationship with Europe and to do that, I must say something about the identity of Europe itself... Europe is not the creation of the Treaty of Rome... Nor is the European idea the property of any group or institution.”

Powerful stuff... but we are sure Cameron would suggest The Iron Lady was being "divisive and stupid"...

Riki Wilchins, who has undergone “sex change” surgery and is a far-left social change activist, wrote in the gay publication The Advocate last week that social conservatives and many LGBT activists are missing the point when it comes to the transgender bathroom debate. The title of Wilchins' article makes the points succinctly: "We'll Win the Bathroom Battle When the Binary Burns."

People should be able to enter whatever bathroom “fits their gender identity,” Wilchins wrote, but the fact that we even have “male” and “female” bathrooms reflects something about society that needs to change. There are many “genderqueer” or “non-binary” people, Wilchins wrote, pointing to a student who recently “came out” to President Obama as “non-binary” at a London townhall as a notable example.

“Non-binary” people don’t identify as male or female and they often want to be referred to as “they” or “hir” or “zer.” So the fact that there are even intimate facilities that reflect the “binary” truth about gender should change, Wilchins wrote. In the eyes of LGBT advocates, the notion of only two genders (which one can pick, of course) is antiquated.

Scientists are now contemplating the creation of a synthetic human genome, meaning they would use chemicals to manufacture all the DNA contained in human chromosomes. The prospect is spurring both intrigue and concern in the life sciences community, because it might be possible — if someone were able to create a totally artificial genome — to implant that genome into embryos and create human beings without parents.

While the project is still in the idea phase, and also involves efforts to improve DNA synthesis in general, it was discussed at a closed-door meeting at Harvard Medical School in Boston on Tuesday. The roughly 150 attendees were told not to contact the media or to tweet about the meeting.

Organizers said the project in some ways would be a follow-up to the original Human Genome Project, which was aimed at reading the sequence of the three billion chemical letters in the DNA blueprint of human life. The new project, by contrast, would involve not reading, but rather writing the human genome — synthesizing all three billion units from chemicals.

But such an attempt would raise numerous ethical issues. Could scientists create humans with certain kinds of traits, perhaps people born and bred to be soldiers? Or might it be possible to make copies of specific people?

On Sunday, US Secretary of State John Kerry met with Saudi King Salman to lay the groundwork for the meeting. Since March, a national unity government has been gradually exerting its influence in Libya following years of unrest in the country. However, the government – led by businessman Fayez al-Sarraj and backed by much of the international community – faces political opposition from within Libya and the threat of the so-called "Islamic state" (IS) establishing a bigger foothold.

"A common effort is needed to help the process of bringing stability to Libya," said Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni ahead of the summit. The flow of migrants from Libya across the Mediterranean to Europe is also a topic for discussion in Vienna. The meeting is scheduled to last for two days, with the focus shifting to Syria on Tuesday. Representatives from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Russia are also expected to attend.

Anyway, two can play at this game. What must we fear if we stay? Not merely relentless uncontrolled immigration (and the lies told about it), putting such burdens on our schools, hospitals and infrastructure that UK citizens suffer, but the inevitability of our nation’s destiny being increasingly subject to the wishes of foreigners whom we don’t elect. I am not talking about the amorphous idea of “Brussels”: I’m talking about Germany.

Five years ago I wrote a piece referring to the control Angela Merkel exerted over Europe as “the Fourth Reich”. I was accused of a horrible breach of taste. However, when one looks at German power today one realises that, when I wrote, she had hardly even started. The key to German success is this: it participates in a weak currency (whose value would collapse without it) enabling its exports to sell far more cheaply than had it retained the Deutschmark. Therefore, it continues to grow in economic strength relative to its partners – including us – but especially those in the eurozone, notably France and Italy, who would benefit greatly from restoring the Franc and the Lira.

It was not just deeply offensive, but ironic, that Mr Cameron should last week have evoked the idea of another world war in his latest intelligence-insulting act of hysteria aimed at making us vote to stay in the EU. It is not just that our fathers and grandfathers fought in two world wars to allow Britain the right to continue to rule itself, rather than to be ruled by Germans: Mr Cameron plainly won’t admit that German domination of the EU means it has conquered without war, and signing up to the EU is signing up to the Fourth Reich.

Ask the Greeks if you think I exaggerate: Germany runs Europe without firing a shot. It forces far weaker partners to stay in a currency zone that is crippling them, and uses its economic muscle to dictate immigration and other key policies. And if you believe the Germans won’t take a UK vote to stay in as a signal to continue and intensify their control over the EU, and to make us help pay for its baleful effects, then you aren’t paying attention. It’s not war we should fear, but what the Germans do in peace.

Mr Johnson’s potentially inflammatory comparison to Hitler comes at a critical time in the European Union referendum campaign, with senior Tories on either side publicly attacking each other in blunt terms. In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Johnson warned that while bureaucrats in Brussels are using “different methods” from the Nazi dictator, they share the aim of unifying Europe under one “authority”.

Mr Johnson argued that the past 2,000 years of European history had been characterised by repeated attempts to unify Europe under a single government in order to recover the continent’s lost “golden age” under the Romans. He said: “Napoleon, Hitler, various people tried this out, and it ends tragically. The EU is an attempt to do this by different methods. But fundamentally what is lacking is the eternal problem, which is that there is no underlying loyalty to the idea of Europe.”

“There is no single authority that anybody respects or understands. That is causing this massive democratic void.” The comments caused an immediate row between anti- and pro-EU campaigners. Mr Grayling, a Eurosceptic Cabinet minister, said: “Boris is a historian – he was doing a piece of historical analysis.”

The Republican candidate for November's US Presidential elections directly contradicted Democratic US President Barack Obama who gave the warning after talks with UK Prime Minister David Cameron. Mr Trump, in an interview with ITV, said: "I don’t want to say front or anything else – I would treat everybody fairly but it would not make any difference to me whether they were in the EU or not.

"You would certainly not be at the back of the queue, that I can tell you." Mr Trump confirmed that he would back a Brexit if he had a vote in the referendum on June 23. He said: "I have no preference - I have big investments in Britain - but I have no preference. I think if I were from Britain I would probably, I would not want it, I would want to go back to the different system."

In a major attack, she accused Mr Carney of “provoking financial instability” by warning that the risks of leaving "could possibly include a technical recession". She told the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme that Mr Carney will be "significantly regretting getting involved in politics" and described it as "an incredibly dangerous intervention".

Ms Leadsom said: "They're not there to provoke financial instability and that's what they've done." Mr Carney appeared on the same programme and defended his intervention, saying the Bank’s comments were “carefully considered”. He said that he could not “ignore” the risks of a Brexit and said the Bank has a “responsibility” to take steps to “reduce them”.

During a lively speech in front of a crowd of 200 people at Armada House in Bristol city centre, Mr Johnson described the Vote Leave campaign as being a David and Goliath struggle. He said: "We have passion and courage and a sense of duty. This is not just the time to unshackle Britannia from her chains - though it certainly is - it's a time to speak up for freedom across the whole continent."

Mr Johnson added: "There are many others who take a different view, I think we would prosper and thrive outside the EU. People were grossly wrong about the euro, they said London would collapse and all the banking would go to Frankfurt. It is just the establishment trying to scare the pants off people because of vested interests."

"The perpetrators are predominantly male, and nearly 80 percent come from the place where the offense was committed," he said. Although Münch said there was no sign that the attacks were being organized at a national level by right-wing extremist groups, there was a danger of such organization occurring at some stage.

He said there was a possible risk that "criminal or even terrorist structures" could arise on the basis of anti-refugee sentiment and that German police were taking this threat "very seriously." In recent months, Germany has seen opposition to the government's liberal policy on refugees become more vocal and take on a more organized form in the guise of the political party Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the "anti-Islamization" movement PEGIDA.

In 2015, Germany took in some 1.1 million people seeking asylum, many of them fleeing conflict, poverty or persecution in the Middle East and Africa.

In an email seen by Express.co.uk, members of the European Parliament’s budget committee have been told plans for 2017 spending have been “postponed” from the end of May until the end of June. MEPs have also been told to clear their diaries for a key budget meeting and vote on June 27. The unusual delay in announcing the draft EU budget, which totalled more than £110 billion in 2015, breaks the traditional cycle for deciding Brussels spending.

But Brexit campaigners have suggested EU bosses could be trying to hide a huge hike in Britain’s budget contribution until after June 23. Ukip MEP Jonathan Arnott, who sits on the European Parliament's Budget Control Committee, said: “EU membership costs the UK a huge bag of cash each day, but the European Commission wants to keep the British public in the dark about exactly how much this will increase. The Commission is dishonestly withholding vital information from British taxpayers who deserve a fully-informed discussion about how much the EU is costing us."

"When our members uncovered how Verizon is padding its incredible profit margins by replacing good paying American jobs with poverty-wage jobs abroad, Verizon sent armed guards and a SWAT team after them." — CWA President Chris Shelton

The union representatives, including CWA staff, a representative of UNI (global labor federation) and representatives of KMU (a Filipino union), traveled to the Philippines for four days this week to investigate a report from local Verizon employees who sent word that the corporation was lying to its American workers about the size of its offshore operations in the country.

"Verizon is offshoring work far beyond what has previously been reported and what the company publicly has claimed. Verizon is offshoring customer service calls to numerous call centers in the Philippines, where workers are paid just $1.78 an hour and forced to work overtime without compensation," wrote the CWA in a statement.

When Verizon got wind of CWA's discovery on Wednesday, according to the union, rather than meet with union representatives the company sent a SWAT team and armed guards after them.