European markets slumped to their lowest level in more than two years amid an unremittingly bleak outlook for the global economy and concerns over the resilience of the world's biggest lenders. The Euro Stoxx 600 index of leading bank shares fell as much as 6 percent in Monday's trading, closing down 5.6 percent, plumbing depths not seen since August 2012. The continent's lenders have now lost 17.3 percent of their value of the last 30 days.

Volatility forced shares in Barclays to be briefly suspended in late afternoon trading. Barclays, along with BNP Paribas and ING Santander all closed down more than 5 percent. Deutsche Bank was the world's biggest bank faller, with its shares down as much as 11.8 percent. Germany's largest lender, which posted a record loss in 2015, closed down 9.5 percent on the day, and has seen 40 percent of its market capitalisation wiped off since the start of the year. Its shares are now down to their lowest ever level at €13.82 per share.

“Putting on a trade at the moment would feel like standing in front of an oncoming freight train,” said Juan Esteban Valencia at Societe Generale. “There are too many issues to worry about, whether it’s oil, China’s slowdown, emerging markets or bank exposures to emerging markets and commodities.”

Europe’s escalating migration crisis- which saw over a million people pour into the continent last year - has led to the re-introduction of temporary border controls in the EU for the first time time in two decades, threatening to reverse one of Brussels’ landmark integration projects.

A full blown dismantling of the borderless zone - where people and trade can move without restriction between 26 countries - would cause “unforeseeable damage” to the continent’s beleaguered economies, Peter Szijjarto, Hungary’s foreign minister has said.

“If the Schengen zone is going to be demolished or destroyed, then it will cause such serious economic damage that I don’t know how Europe is going to handle it", Mr Szijjarto told The Telegraph. His warning comes amid fears that abolishing Europe's open borders would wipe €110 billion off the EU's economies over 10 years.

Germany's Jens Weidmann and France's newly appointed François Villeroy de Galhau urged member states to move towards a "comprehensive sharing of sovereignty" which would include a common 19-member treasury and an "independent fiscal council" with a eurozone parliament.

"While monetary policy has delivered a lot of support for the euro-area economy, it cannot bring about long-lasting economic growth," they wrote in Germany's Süddeutschen Zeitung newspaper. "More integration appears to be the most straightforward solution to restore confidence in the euro area." Their comments are a rare sign of unity from the EU's most powerful founding member states, which have often diverged on their visions for the future of the eurozone.

"Sometimes profound tectonic shifts in global politics arise from the least noticed events. Such is the situation with Iran and the recent visit to Tehran of China's President Xi Jinping. What emerged from the talks confirms that the vital third leg of what will become a genuine Eurasian Golden Triangle, of nations committed to peaceful economic development, is now in place," American-German researcher, historian and strategic risk consultant F William Engdahl writes in his article for New Eastern Outlook.

On January 23, Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani signed 17 agreements on economic and technological cooperation. Furthermore, the leaders announced they will cooperate on the China-led One Belt One Road initiative. The researcher calls the formal inclusion of Iran into China's New Economic Silk Road project "a giant positive step." According to Engdahl, it will allow Tehran to "break years of economic isolation" and will open doors to the region's economic development.

"We're seeing the emergence of a true Eurasian Golden Triangle with China, Russia and Iran as the three key points," Engdahl underscores. "With the stated plan to route the Silk Road rail infrastructure to assist the mining of new gold for currency backing of the Eurasian member states, including now Iran with its significant own unexploited gold, the hyper-inflated, debt-bloated dollar system is gaining a formidable positive alternative, one committed to peace and development," the researcher concludes.

Riot police clashed with demonstrators in Amsterdam as supporters of the anti-Islam group PEGIDA tried to hold their first protest meeting in the Dutch capital. Only about 200 PEGIDA supporters were present, outnumbered by police and left-wing demonstrators who shouted, "Refugees are welcome, fascists are not!"

Aside from its nationalist and anti-Islam stance, the group has also sided strongly with Russia. Several Russian flags were flown at Saturday's rally in Dresden, along with banners including "Peace with Russia" and "Stop war against Syria." Smaller PEGIDA-style protests were also taking place in France, Britain, Poland, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Denmark, Finland and Estonia.

Lord Powell overlooks the Iron Lady’s regular handbagging of Brussels and her stirring “no, no, no” declaration in the Commons when faced with the prospect of a European superstate wielding extensive undemocratic powers over Britain back in 1990.

It is true that Lady Thatcher supported the concept of a Common Market free trade area in which Britain could bang the table and get the best possible deals. But 25 years ago she could not have foreseen the way the Brussels regime has been transformed into a federal union with its own failing currency, President, diplomatic service, embassies, aid programme and disastrous immigration policy.

In this drive towards a United States of Europe, Britain’s independence has been destroyed, something Lady T would not have countenanced. Be warned: in the coming months you will be bombarded with scare stories, half-truths and downright lies by the Remain camp as it seeks to influence the vote, so don’t be taken in.

The systematic slaughter of Christians at the hands of ISIS and emigration from their historic homelands in the Middle East unite the two churches in defense of Catholic and Orthodox populations that are in real danger of extinction.

Paving the way for the possibility of an historic rapprochement after a thousand-year divorce between Orthodoxy and Catholicism is the dire situation of Christians in Syria and Iraq and widespread Cristophobia throughout the Muslim-majority nations in the Middle East and Africa.

Systematic persecution, including wholesale slaughter, of both Catholic and Orthodox communities in Syria and Iraq, has pushed historic Middle Eastern Christians to the brink of extinction, accounting for less than 4 percent of the region's population.

A spokesman for the Russian Orthodox patriarchate recently spun Russian intervention in Syria in terms of a holy war. "The struggle against terrorism is a holy struggle and today, our country is the most active force in the world that is taking part in the struggle against terrorism. Not because she has any selfish interest in this, but because terrorism is an amoral force."

Experts in the field of genetics observed something very curious. The Zika virus emerged exactly from those areas where the GM mosquitoes were released in 2015 to contain the dengue! The mosquitoes were released by a company called Oxitech in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF). Could one virus have been replaced with another?

As Brazil started scrutinizing the 4180 cases of microcephaly more surprises emerged. Alerted by a circular to report cases of microcephaly pediatricians in the country had clearly exceeded their brief by reporting every child that appeared to have small skulls. Having small skulls is not unusual in Brazil. As of February 4th only 404 of those cases were confirmed to be microcephaly.

Worse, the Zika virus was found in only 17 of them! In other words, only 4.2% of microcephaly cases in Brazil have been shown to have any connection to Zika. That means 96% of microcephaly cases have no link to Zika. There was evidently no epidemic, and the role of the Zika virus is severely questioned. And yet the WHO went ahead with the global public health emergency declaration. Again, why?

The charges are for “contributing to the delinquency of a minor” – even though the children were homeschooled and even though school officials later acknowledged that the parents’ program met state requirements. The school system says the parents did not provide proper notification on time that their children would not be in public school.

Instead of notifying the parents when they were in violation of the law, school officials let the absences for the children pile up for about a month before bringing criminal charges against them, attorney Peter Kamakawiwoole of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) said. In most cases nationwide, Kamakawiwoole said, “if the family resolves the issue promptly, state officials rarely pursue further action — like criminal prosecution — against the parents.”

Russian-language hackers deployed a virus known as the Corkow Trojan to infect Kazan-based Energobank and place more than $500 million in orders at non-market rates in February 2015, Group-IB told Bloomberg, without identifying individuals behind the attack. The resulting rate swing prompted a Russian central bank investigation into potential market manipulation.

Malicious software of the type used in the attack can open a back door into computers via seemingly legitimate websites or files and then force them to carry out hackers’ orders. Corkow, which regularly updates itself to evade detection by anti-virus programs, has infiltrated 250,000 computers worldwide and infected more than 100 financial institutions, according to Group-IB, which investigated the attack on behalf of Energobank.

Donald Trump recently spoke about American football. No other game more fully embodies his country's character. The sport is about capturing territory, and players need to be tough and fearless to win. A player who is afraid of being tackled by someone from the opposing team while running has already lost the game. "I don't even watch it as much anymore," Trump told a crowd of his supporters in Reno, Nevada. "The whole game is all screwed up."

A growing number of studies point to the devastating consequences of the many tackles in the game, in which players try to stop their opponents by throwing themselves at them head-first: brain trauma, depression, suicide. New rules have been created, and there are now stiffer penalties for the most glaring fouls. On the stage in Reno, Trump said he missed "what used to be considered a great tackle, a violent head-on tackle." He slammed his fists together and repeated himself, vulgarly pursing his lips as he said the word "violent." "You used to see these tackles and it was incredible to watch, right?"

And today? "Bing! Flag!" Trump shouted. "The referees, they want to all throw flags so their wives see them at home." "Football has become soft," he said, repeating the sentence as if it were a key hypothesis on the state of the nation. "Football has become soft like our country has become soft!" As he held up his index finger, the crowd cheered and people held signs up in the air that read: "The silent majority stands with Trump."

"Believe me, I'll change things. And again, we're going to be so respected. I don't want to use the word 'feared,'" he told the audience. But that is precisely what Trump wants: to be feared. His bid for the White House, long ridiculed, is a fight for a ruthless, brutal America. Behind his campaign slogan "Make America great again!" is the vision of a country that no longer cares about international treaties, ethnic minorities or established standards of decency. Trump wants to attack head-first again. The 69-year-old embodies a new harshness and brutality, and both a physical and emotional crudeness.

Tensions soared in the region after Pyongyang jubilantly announced to the world that its 9.31am launch of an earth observation satellite into orbit from a site near the Chinese border was a “complete success”. The launch of the satellite - just a month after a nuclear bomb test - is widely regarded by the international community as a covert means of testing technology in order to develop a missile capable of striking the US mainland.

Pyongyang claimed that the satellite was orbiting earth every 94 minutes, with the US Strategic Command declaring it had detected a missile entering space, while South Korea’s military stated that the rocket had put an object into orbit. Seoul and Washington also announced that they would explore the possibility of deploying an advanced missile defence system in South Korea “at the earliest possible date”, a move likely to prompt a surge in regional tension, with strong opposition from China and Russia.

The US Justice Department is considering legal changes to combat what it sees as a rising threat from domestic anti-government extremists, senior officials told Reuters, even as it steps up efforts to stop Islamic State-inspired attacks at home. Extremist groups motivated by a range of US born philosophies present a “clear and present danger,” John Carlin, the Justice Department’s chief of national security, told Reuters in an interview. “Based on recent reports and the cases we are seeing, it seems like we’re in a heightened environment.”

Over the past year, the Justice Department has brought charges against domestic extremist suspects accused of attempting to bomb US military bases, kill police officers and fire bomb a school and other buildings in a predominantly Muslim town in New York state.

But federal prosecutors tackling domestic extremists still lack an important legal tool they have used extensively in dozens of prosecutions against Islamic State-inspired suspects: a law that prohibits supporting designated terrorist groups. Carlin and other Justice Department officials declined to say if they would ask Congress for a comparable domestic extremist statute, or comment on what other changes they might pursue to toughen the fight against anti-government extremists.