According to AJ Bell, the broker, the FTSE 100 has risen or fallen by 1 percent or more on 20 of the 31 trading days since the start of the year. This is a record, with market volatility higher today than it was during the financial crisis and in 2000, when the tech bubble popped. It has been the worst start for global stock markets since the Great Depression - has the sell-off been overdone or is the bear market here to stay?

The honest answer to the question is – nobody knows. But, in my view, there are plenty of issues to worry about, which have been brushed under the carpet for far too long. When looking at Western stock markets I think the falls since the start of the year have barely scratched the surface.

These markets have gone up a long way over the past five years, thanks to the helping hand they have had from central bankers who have injected so much quantitative easing (“QE”) into the system. But as an economic policy QE has not worked, it has created so many unintended consequences; we’ve never seen negative nominal bond yields or depositors being charged to put money in a bank in Switzerland and Germany. This is dangerous, negative deposit rates force money out of the banking system.

Another threat is deflation, and this is not currently reflected in share price valuations. The stock market falls since the start of the year are merely a sobering realisation that all is not well with the world and that central bankers’ credibility is waning.

Recent figures showed Italy's economy grew by just 0.1 per cent in the last quarter of 2015, while Portugal's was only 0.2 per cent. Investors have become increasingly concerned about the anti-austerity agenda of the Portuguese socialist government, fearing defaults could lie further ahead, which has seen the borrowing costs for the government soar.

Debt levels in the country now stand at a staggering 130 per cent of GDP making Portugal one of the most indebted in Europe, according to economists at RBS. At the same time, traders appear to be particularly worried about the Italian banks, which are estimated to hold around £270 BILLION (€350 billion) of bad loans - more than 30 per cent of the eurozone's total.

Italy's top stock market dropped by as much as 20 per cent in recent weeks as fears over a European banking crisis gathered pace. Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said: "The solvency of Italy’s banks has also been a continuous source of concern, despite talk of the creation of a new 'bad bank' amidst concern about the true levels of non-performing loans.

While Poland is generally much more relaxed about expressing itself than the self censoring tendencies of western and northern Europe, the cover of the latest wSieci (The Network) conservative magazine has already prompted reaction just 24 hours after release, being beamed around the continent by social media.

Featuring a personification of Europa being pawed at by dark hands — what the German media would perhaps euphemistically term “southern” or “Mediterranean” — the headline decries the “Islamic Rape of Europe”.

The article lists dozens of recorded sex attacks from the past few weeks, often visited upon under-age Europeans, but it is not just migrants who come in for criticism from wSieci. The magazine also had strong words for German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who it accuses of listening more to the German industrial lobby which it claims campaigns for cheap labour from outside the European Union.

As a feature begging the question ‘Does Europe Want to Commit Suicide’ concludes, “There is concern that European leaders have too late drawn the obvious conclusions, and some of them feel self-loathing”. “Europe is an oasis of prosperity and peace” compared to Africa and the Middle East, it contends, but the arrival of “millions” of cultural Muslims will “shock and undermine Europe”. The blame for this, the article lays firmly at the feet of Mrs Merkel.

Viktor Orban made the comments during a visit to Russia, speaking a day before a European Union summit where the migrant crisis is expected to feature prominently on the agenda. Orban said after talks with President Vladimir Putin that Hungary disagrees with those in the EU who see the flow of migrants as something good.

"Europe's largest nations now believe it's mostly positive," he said through an interpreter. "Our view is that it's bad." Without naming Germany or any other EU member, Orban went on to assail those in the EU who see Hungary's desire to protect its ethnic and Christian roots as a "voice from the Dark Ages."

In remarks heralding fierce debates at the EU summit, Orban said that for Hungary "Christian and national values will be as important in the future as they were in the past," adding that his nation believes that "uncontrolled migration will cause more harm than good."

Belgian police investigating the November Paris attacks said during a raid they discovered a 10-hour long video showing the outside of a house which they found out was the home of a man working in Belgium's "nuclear world". Thierry Werts, spokesman for the country's prosecutor's office, said a surveillance camera had been installed from a wood in front of the man's home but refused to reveal his identity and profession.

However, it is widely believed the man is a senior official at the Mol nuclear waste facility in the Flanders region which researches how to use radioactivity in energy, industry and medicine. Mr Werts said the video was discovered "a while ago" during a raid in which several people were detained after being linked to the Paris attacks where 130 people were killed by ISIS militants.

Security services have a long-held fear extremists could get their hands on radioactive material. Those fears were heightened today after police revealed information about the video just hours before it emerged ISIS jihadis may have stolen a case of "highly dangerous" radioactive material from a storage facility in Iraq.

More than 9,000 feet high, the volcano straddles the border between North Korea and China and last erupted in 1903. Experts have warned of increasing seismic activity beneath the peak in recent years, however, including seismic uplift and rising levels of sulphur dioxide, suggesting that the magma chamber is expanding.

Just 72 miles from North Korea's Punggye-ri proving grounds - where satellite images suggest that Pyongyang may already be ready to carry out a fifth underground nuclear test - scientists believe another detonation could jolt the dormant volcano back into life. Mr Hong, a professor of seismology at Seoul's Yonsei University, said the Mount Paekdu eruption in 946 produced pyroclastic flows nearly 1,000 feet thick while ash 2 inches thick coated parts of northern Japan, more than 650 miles away.

A spokesman for the prestigious private university located outside Chicago declined to give The College Fix details on the program, such as how many students enrolled and how it’s been received so far. “It’s part of Northwestern’s Social Justice Education effort to create learning opportunities for our students,” Bob Rowley, a spokesman for the campus, told The College Fix in an email, providing a link to the social justice webpage and adding: “Beyond that, we don’t have anything more for you on it.”

According to a report in the campus newspaper, the workshops focus on “terminology used in conversations of race, the history and meaning of whiteness, white guilt and the difference between intellectualizing and feeling racism.”

The Daily Caller reports the events are hosted in collaboration with the university’s Women’s Center. “Students applying for the program are required to commit to attend all six sessions, seemingly preventing students from abandoning the program if they don’t like it or feel uncomfortable,” the Caller reports.

A leaked text reveals how Belgium, France, Hungary and Spain will plan to trim back Mr Cameron’s deal, and then prevent it being copied to halt a “contagion” of reform across Europe. Leaders will seek to water-down his welfare reforms, making them limited to only newly-arrived migrants, and weaken a mechanism sought by George Osborne to prevent Eurozone countries from ganging-up against the City of London.

The document, detailing each country’s negotiating position, has been prepared by a European foreign ministry. It underscores how Mr Cameron’s interlocutors are comparing notes ahead of talks that are expected to run until dawn. The plan could change, but under one timetable being prepared, the leaders will arrive in Brussels on Thursday afternoon, and after press interviews and a group photograph talks on Britain's deal are expected to begin at around 5pm. Over dinner, at about 8pm, leaders will turn to the migration crisis.

Then Donald Tusk - who normally insists on summits ending at midnight - is expected to take leaders aside in turn in the hope of wearing down their objections and presenting an accord early on Friday morning. That will allow Mr Cameron to address his Cabinet that afternoon, triggering a four-month referendum campaign. “Unless something changes we are in for a very long night,” said Konrad Szymanski, Poland’s Europe minister.

In an 86-page report on the union's foreign policy strategy, a Lords committee said the EU was "not a global security provider". In an apparent put-down of plans first mooted last year by the president of the European commission, the EU External Affairs Sub-Committee wrote: "The EU has global interests — economic, climate change, the multilateral order — and must therefore have a global vision, and policy to support that vision."

But it added: "The EU is not a global security provider." The report published today, calls for a new EU strategy to recognise the limits of Brussels' power in policing the European continent and conflicts on its doorstep. The idea of an EU-wide army was first put forward by Jean-Claude Juncker in March last year to allow all member states to "design a common foreign and security policy".

Some European leaders want a new shared army to tackle emerging threats from Islamic State terrorists in the Middle East and increasing Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Baltics. It could also be deployed to help manage the escalating migrant crisis affecting vast swathes of the continent. But critics fear an EU army would jeopardise the UK's position in Nato - and threaten the special relationship between London and Washington. Germany has led the way in spelling out the supposed need for an EU army.

Since 1950, the number of required vaccine doses has risen from 3 to 74 – an increase of more than 24 times. In 1983, there were still only 10 recommended vaccines being administered to children under the age of 6 – the schedule then required 24 doses, 7 injections and 4 oral polio doses. By 2010, the number of doses had increased to 68, with over half of them being administered before children reached 18 months of age. As of February 1, 2016, the number of doses before age 17 has increased to 74 – including 53 injected vaccines and 3 oral rotavirus doses.

"Predictably, children today are suffering from autoimmune disorders, behavioral problems, and physical disabilities at a rate growing in lockstep with the skyrocketing number of shots. One in every two children suffers from a chronic problem today and the situation is only growing worse with each passing year." So, why the huge increase since 1983?

Many Americans are unaware of the fact that in 1986, a bill called the Vaccine Injury Act was passed into law. This Act absolves vaccine manufacturers from any liability for injury or death caused by vaccines. That's right: If a vaccine injures or kills your child, the company which made the vaccine will not be held responsible. Now it becomes clear why so many new vaccines have been added to the schedule, and why there are currently another 271 new vaccines awaiting approval by the FDA…

The mosques implicated themselves “because they are run illegally without proper licenses, they preach hatred, or use takfiri speech," Hassan El Alaoui, one of France’s chief imams, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday; “takfiri” speech is that which levels accusations of apostasy at other Muslims. El Alaoui also reported that the government will shut down between 100 and 160 mosques, approximately five percent of the nation’s 2,600 total. In addition, authorities searched 2,235 Muslim businesses and homes and arrested 232 individuals.

In the wake of the November 13 Paris jihadist attacks that killed 130 people, however, it was the hardware found that was especially alarming. Writes Christine Niles at ChurchMilitant.com: “Several of these [100-plus] mosques have been raided, revealing a 'staggering' number of weapons and ammunition." Sunday, authorities conducted a raid on a mosque in Lagny-sur-Marne, 18 miles east of Paris, and uncovered 334 weapons and a large quantity of 7.62mm Kalashnikov ammunition, along with ISIS propaganda videos.

Police also found recordings of chants "glorifying the martyrs of jihad linked to the terrorist organization Jabhat al-Nusra," the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda. The chants were found among teaching materials for youth in a madrassa, or private religious school for boys, connected to the mosque.

The uprising proved to be a pre-cursor to NATO-led intervention in Libya, which would eventually result in the brutal killing of Gaddafi. The outpouring of adulation and messages of support to the opposition forces from Western world leaders spoke of a ‘bright’ new dawn for Libya after Gaddafi’s toppling.

“People in Britain salute your courage, and while we are proud of the role we played to help, we know this was your revolution from your bravery from people in Benghazi, from people in Tripoli … You showed the world you would get rid of a dictator and choose freedom,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said during a 2011 visit to Benghazi.

However, five years on since the start of the uprising, Libya is in a markedly worse position. Its oil revenues have halved, while it is also facing a growing threat from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), which is looking to capitalize on the lack of political stability and political infighting.

As RAF jets are already over desert skies and President Obama is telling the Pentagon to look at military options, it seems that the west is ready to take on the 6,000 Islamic State fighters in the vast, oil-rich sands of north Africa. Tunisia is so worried by the build-up of Islamists on its doorstep that it has begun to build an anti-terror barrier along its border with Libya – a desperate attempt to protect itself from terrorism. In the ever spiralling war against terror, Libya now matters to everyone.

But the effort to address the threat is being impeded by the body that should be leading the response: the United Nations. Foreign forces would have to be invited in by a Libyan government. The problem is not that there isn’t such a government. The problem is that there are three.

From the outset the UN has failed to work with political forces on the ground to design administrations best suited to local traditions. This would have meant international partners handing over responsibility for anti-terror operations to Libyan forces of varying political complexions and – something the west and its allies have so far not been willing to contemplate – tolerating their attempts to dislodge IS.

Instead militias, warlords and armed groups thrived as UN-backed processes failed to deliver governance or a politics that has popular support. The task in Libya has always been a daunting one. It has not been helped by the UN playing a difficult hand badly.

I remember that when the euro was being designed in the late 1990s, I argued with my European G7 colleagues that skirmishing over seigniorage by issuing a 500 euro note was highly irresponsible and mostly would be a boon to corruption and crime. Since the crime and corruption in significant part would happen outside European borders, I suggested that, to paraphrase John Connally, it was their currency, but would be everyone’s problem. And I made clear that in the context of an international agreement, the US would consider policy regarding the $100 bill. But because the Germans were committed to having a high denomination note, the issue was never seriously debated in international forums.

The fact that — as Sands points out — in certain circles the 500 euro note is known as the “Bin Laden” confirms the arguments against it. Sands’ extensive analysis is totally convincing on the linkage between high denomination notes and crime. He is surely right that illicit activities are facilitated when a million dollars weighs 2.2 pounds as with the 500 euro note rather than more than 50 pounds as would be the case if the $20 bill was the high denomination note.

“The crash will come, but it would be nice if it came two years from now”, Thomas Thygesen, head of economics at SEB told over 200 commodity investors and analysts in London last month. His audience was rapt with unusual attention. They could be forgiven for thinking the slump had not already arrived. Commodity prices have crashed by two thirds since their peaks in 2014. Oil has borne the brunt of the sell-off, suffering the worst price collapse in modern history. Brent crude has fallen from $115 a barrel in the summer of 2014, to just $27.70 in mid-January.

Plenty of investors sitting in the blue-lit, cavernous surrounds of Bloomberg’s London HQ would have had their fingers burnt by the price capitulation. “They tell you you should start your presentations with a joke, but making jokes at a commodities seminar is hardly appropriate these days,” Thygesen told his nervous audience.

For many market watchers, a confluence of factors - led by oil, but encompassing China, the emerging world, and financial markets - are all brewing to create a perfect storm in a global economy that has barely come to terms with the Great Recession. “We are in a very unusual situation where market sentiment is of a different nature to anything we’ve seen before,” says Thygesen.

Two of the world's three major central banks have slashed interest rates into negative territory. Monetary tools will need to be deployed more creatively, perhaps going as far as injecting stimulus directly into the veins of the economy. Should the world manage to ride out the perfect storm of 2016, next time round, answers will be difficult to find.