Recall that the €500 note is the second highest currency denomination in G10, after the CHF1,000 note. More importantly, the total value of €500 notes in circulation amounts to €306.8 billion. In other words, if overnight the €307 billion worth of €500 bills were eliminated, the notional value of the entire amount of European physical currency in circulation would decline by 30% to €700 billion!

And there you have it: while it may not be banning all European cash outright, we are confident the ECB would be delighted if one third of it was to start, while pretending to be fighting financial crime, terrorism, corruption and drug dealers. Then the Federal Reserve follows suit and listens to Harvard “scholar” and former Standard Chartered CEO Peter Sands who just last week said the US should ban the $100 note as it would “deter tax evasion, financial crime, terrorism and corruption.”

[In the USA] $100 bills account for $1.08 trillion of the $1.38 trillion total in circulation. So, should the Fed react to the ECB’s “scrapping” of the €500 bill, which accounts for 30% of the value of currency in circulation, then the Fed would respond in kind by eliminating 78% of all paper currency in circulation by value.

Not a bad way to launch a global ban on paper currency ahead of a global NIRP regime, and all, of course, in the name of fighting “tax evasion, financial crime, terrorism and corruption.”

A total of nine minor earthquakes were reported, according to the US Geological Survey. The quakes were felt across Kansas, Missouri, New Mexico, Nebraska, Texas, Arkansas and Iowa. The epicenter was near the East Campbell Gas Field and about 75 miles west of Cushing - the “Pipeline Crossroads - and one of the largest oil storage hubs in the world.

Oklahoma is one of the top five oil production states and accounts for some 3 percent to 4 percent of total US output. The US Energy Information Administration last week raised its estimate for total state production by 100,000 barrels per day, up 25 percent to 30 percent.

While Oklahoma’s oil fields have experienced a boom over the past decade thanks to fracking and horizontal drilling, the state also reported 907 earthquakes of magnitude last year. This represents a 54 percent increase in earthquakes from 2014 alone.

Researchers using a bioprinter, described Monday in Nature Biotechnology, say that they’ve found a way to manufacture living muscle, bone and cartilage. They say that this technology can make unprecedented advances in the healing of battlefield injuries by using a combination of living cells and a plastic-like material.

While printed tissue has been accomplished before, scientists have not figured out a way to nourish the tissues by allowing blood vessels to colonize them after they are transplanted. “Cells simply cannot survive without a blood vessel supply that’s smaller than 200 microns [0.07 inches], which is extremely small,” Atala told Gizmodo. “That’s the maximum distance. And that’s not just for printing, that’s nature.”

So far, the manufactured body parts have only been tested on laboratory animals, but the transplants were stable enough to be considered successful in those tests.

Mr Obama launched a scathing attack on the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination in which he identified Mr Trump by name. He said: "I continue to believe Mr Trump will not be president. And the reason is I have a lot of faith in the American people. I think they recognise being president is a serious job. It's not hosting a talk show or a reality show, it's not promotion, it's not marketing, it's hard and a lot of people count on us getting it right.

"It's not a matter of pandering and getting in the news every day. It requires being able to work with leaders around the world in a way that reflects the importance of the office, and gives people confidence that you know the facts, and you know their names, and you know where they are on a map, and you know something about their history." Mr Obama added: "The guy who's standing where I stand has the nuclear codes with him. He can order 21-year-olds into fire.

"This is reported as entertainment but as you get closer (to the election) the reality has a way of intruding. The American people are pretty sensible and I think they'll make a sensible choice." Mr Obama was speaking at a press conference in California after hosting a summit with Southeast Asian leaders.

Fred Trump, Donald’s father, who was a strict taskmaster with all his five children, told his three sons to be “killers”. After graduation from high school in 1923, Fred started to work full-time in construction. He realised quickly that his German origins could be a hindrance, so he pretended that his parents were Swedish, though his mother spoke English with a thick German accent and baked Apfeltorte for family reunions.

Trump’s success in the casino and property business was down to his early understanding of the power of branding. “Trump” lends itself to big lettering on buildings because it suggests luck and success. Like his father, though, he thought his German origins might not endear him to possible backers. He stuck to Fred’s tale and wrote in his autobiography, “Trump: The Art of the Deal”, that his father was of Swedish descent. Challenged on this point in an interview with Vanity Fair in 1990, he replied: “My father was not German; my father’s parents were German… Swedish, and really sort of all over Europe.”

Were he to become president, Mr Trump would not be the first occupant of the White House of German descent. Dwight Eisenhower’s family was originally called Eisenhauer and hailed from Karlsbrunn, close to the German-French border. Herbert Hoover’s ancestors were called Huber and came from Baden in southern Germany. They both made little of their origins — but they did not go so far as to invent new ones.

But while the leaders of all 28 EU member states will have to sign up to the agreement before it is finished the European Parliament will still have to pass legislation to enact it - and MEPs will not be party to any legally binding deal. The European Parliament will be asked to pass EU laws on the so-called 'emergency brake' on migrant benefits and reforms to how child benefit is paid to migrant workers.

It was made clear today the legislation will not be put to MEPs until after Britain's referendum - expected in June. The potential roadblock to Mr Cameron's deal comes from the so-called 'co-decision' powers that hand the 751 MEPs veto powers over certain laws.

David Cameron looks set to call the EU referendum on Friday after being warned that he faced a Cabinet revolt if he attempted to wait until after the weekend in order to gag eurosceptic ministers. Downing Street on Monday agreed to hold a Cabinet meeting on Friday if, as expected, Mr Cameron is able to secure a final deal with EU leaders at a Brussels summit.

Mr Cameron will use the Cabinet meeting to lift “collective responsibility” rules, meaning that eurosceptic members will finally be able to speak out and say that they are backing the campaign to leave the EU. The Prime Minister made the decision after being warned that Iain Duncan Smith, the eurosceptic Work and Pensions Secretary, was preparing to “go out all guns blazing” on Saturday if the gag was not lifted as soon as the deal was finalised.

Donald Tusk, the president of the European Council, on Monday warned that there is a “real” risk that the talks could break up at the summit. “The risk of break-up is real because this process is indeed very fragile,” he said. “Handle with care. What is broken cannot be mended.”

"A speculative attack could come very fast. If I were a politician in Italy and I was confronted by this sort of insolvency risk I would want to go back to my own currency as fast as possible, because that is the only way to avoid going bankrupt,” he told The Telegraph. The German Council has called for a “sovereign insolvency mechanism” even though this overturns the financial principles of the post-war order in Europe, deeming such a move necessary to restore the credibility of the "no-bailout" clause in the Maastricht Treaty. Professor Bofinger issued a vehement dissent.

The plan has the backing of the Bundesbank and most recently the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schauble, who usually succeeds in imposing his will in the eurozone. Sensitive talks are under way in key European capitals, causing shudders in Rome, Madrid and Lisbon.

At the Munich Security Conference, the prime topics are the refugee crisis, the Syrian conflict, Russian aggression and the potential dissolution of the European Union's very structure. Top European leaders repeatedly lamented that 2015 saw all of Europe’s problems deepen, and unanimously predicted that in 2016 they would get even worse.

“The question of war and peace has returned to the continent,” German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told the audience, indirectly referring to Russian military interventions. “We had thought that peace had returned to Europe for good."

Several European officials told me that there was little expectation that President Barack Obama, in his last year in office, would make any significant policy changes to address what European governments see as an existential set of crises that can’t wait for a new administration in Washington.

But then the price of oil started crashing and the global economy began to slow down significantly. Energy company debt makes up somewhere between 15 and 20 percent of the junk bond market, and the credit rating downgrades for that sector are coming fast and furious. But it isn’t just the energy industry that is seeing a massive wave of defaults, debt restructurings and bankruptcy filings.

Just like with subprime mortgages in 2008, investors are starting to wake up and realize that the paper that they are holding is not worth a whole lot. So now investors are rushing for the exits and we are starting to see panic on a level that we have not witnessed since the last financial crisis. Just look at what has been happening in recent days. Investors took nearly 500 million dollars out of the largest junk bond ETF (iShares HYG) last week alone.

We keep making the same mistakes, but we never seem to learn from history. In fact, the mainstream media keeps telling us that this new financial crisis “isn’t 2008″ over and over again. Even though the exact same patterns are happening once again, they still believe that this time will somehow be different. And to a certain extent that is actually true. This current crisis is not going to be the same as the last one. Eventually, it is going to prove to be even worse than the last one once everything is all said and done.

“Anytime a head of state, member of Congress, or the most conservative member of the US Supreme Court is found dead, an extensive autopsy and toxicology examination should be both immediate and mandatory,” said Gheen. “The horrid reaction and comments about his death expressed by many liberals online illustrate that Scalia was hated by many people.”

Gheen said Scalia’s death “hands the power of the Supreme Court to the modern left for the first time in American history. The court can now vote, even without a replacement of Scalia, to radically change the United States of America,” he said. “Scalia’s death means the Supreme Court is now very likely to rubber stamp Obama’s unconstitutional amnesty orders, tear down Republican drawn districts in many states including North Carolina, and take deep left turns on abortion, gun rights, or anything the liberals have ever dreamed of. Scalia was a solid vote against Obama’s immigration orders to be decided by April of this year.

“We do not contend there is a conspiracy, we contend that there should be no doubts, and the way authorities and the media are rushing conclusions will leave major doubts and legitimate concerns about a death that could lead to a radical political transformation of America to the left,” said Gheen.

An assortment of Syrian rebels backed by the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar are fighting to hold them back. Kurdish forces allied both to Washington and Moscow are taking advantage of the chaos to extend Kurdish territories. The Islamic State has snatched a couple of small villages, while all the focus was on the other groups.

Ahead of a supposed pause in the hostilities negotiated by world powers and due to be implemented later in the week, the conflict seems only to be escalating. Turkey joined in over the weekend, firing artillery across its border at Kurdish positions for a second day Sunday and prompting appeals from the Obama administration to both Turks and Kurds to back down.

Syria’s civil war long ago mutated into a proxy conflict, with competing world powers backing the rival Syrian factions almost since the earliest days of the armed rebellion against President Bashar al-Assad. But perhaps never before have the dangers — or the complications — of what amounts to a mini world war been so apparent as in the battle underway for control of Aleppo.

“There’s a spiral of insecurity here that is not being managed,” said Salman Shaikh, a political consultant whose Shaikh Group is engaged in mediation efforts in the Syrian war. “What we are seeing is a classic, really complicated balance-of-power struggle that could become a very dangerous situation.”

But more is at stake than the outcome of Syria’s war. The Aleppo offensive is affirming Moscow’s stature as a dominant regional power across the heart of the Middle East. The advances by Shiite Iraqi and Lebanese militias are extending the sway of Iran far beyond the traditional Shiite axis of influence into Sunni areas of northern Syria.

Speaking to Schulz, Patriarch Kirill warned that a confrontation between “two major powers” with “immense destructive force” had the potential to devastate “the whole world,” calling for an improvement in relations between Russia and the United States as soon as possible. “A large-scale war should be averted at all costs,” he said, adding that it should be the “number one priority for the Americans, the Russians, and many other people with a sensible perspective on what is happening.”

The Patriarch stressed that most people in the US are “Christians who share the same values and belong to the same global Christian family” as Russians, urging the two nations to use this cultural affinity “to build bridges, rather than deepen the divide” between the two countries.

Addressing the crisis in the Middle East, the Patriarch called on all countries seeking to put an end to the wars in Syria and Iraq, as well as to defeat terrorist groups, “to join their efforts for the sake of [this] goal.”

According to the Patriarch, the current situation in the Middle East requires joint action by all parties concerned, including “Russia, the United States, Western Europe, and some Arab countries.”

Saudi Arabia is among one of the closest allies to the US, but its role in the Middle-East has thus far primarily been a destructive one. It is currently engaged in a bloody conflict in Yemen, in which civilians are a daily victim, yet despite the resemblances the Yemen conflict has to Syria, it does not draw as much criticism from the US-led international coalition, nor the media. In Yemen, Saudi Arabia has taken on the same role the US fulfills in Syria; they are the leader of a Sunni coalition of states carrying out air strikes.

As a close ally to the US, it receives no criticism for civilian casualties or other acts of aggression from western leaders, essentially enjoying a carte blanche for the fulfillment of its military ambitions in the region. Saudi Arabia has now turned its sights onto Syria, shaking all hopes of peace.

On 13 February, days before a proposed ceasefire is due to take effect in Syria, Saudi Arabia confirmed it has begun sending troops and aircraft to Turkey's Incirlik base for a possible joint intervention in Syria. Saudi's plan for involvement in Syria has been thinly veiled as an offer to join the war against the Sunni terrorist group Islamic State; however the Saudi regime has thus far expressed more hostility towards Assad, with their foreign minister, Adel al-Jubeir, stating "There will be no Bashir al-Assad in the future."

Russia’s safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor has officially announced on Wednesday that American producers have failed to meet Russian biological standards, and that their corn and soybeans are “unfit for human consumption”.

“Since the products shipped from the United States pose a real threat to Russia, and the US guarantees are not valid, we reserve the right to introduce temporary restrictions on imports of US corn and soybeans,” said Rosselkhoznadzor spokesman Aleksey Alekseenko.

The Russian ban on unhealthy American produce is part of a bigger plan that Putin initiated earlier in the year where he has promised that Russia will become the world’s biggest exporter of non-GMO food and an “organic superpower”.