Up to six Tornado jets will provide aerial refuelling and satellite images rather than carrying out direct bombing missions. Army chief of staff General Volker Wieker said on Sunday the military force would be mobilised “very quickly” once Germany MPs had given it the go-ahead. But German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier described the 1,200 soldiers as "an upper limit, with a buffer zone".

He continued: “I do not think that we will have that many soldiers deployed abroad at the same time." Germany has seen a rise in extremist Islamists based in the country, with some estimates putting the number of ISIS sympathisers based there at 7,900, and fears have been heightened about the threat from jihadists since the shootings and bombings in France.

Since the Second World War, Germans have been reluctant to join military missions overseas and had previously resisted a direct involvement in Syria.

Forty-four per cent were in favour of Mrs Merkel remaining in power. The findings are an indication of how dramatically Mrs Merkel’s public support has fallen in recent weeks following opposition to her “open-door” refugee policy. Just a few months ago she seemed unassailable as Germany’s leader, and her Christian Democrat party was even daring to contemplate the possibility of an overall majority in the 2017 election.

Last weekend saw renewed violence in refugee shelters around the country. Police had to be called to separate hundreds of asylum-seekers after a brawl broke out in a shelter at Berlin’s Nazi-era Tempelhof airport. Some 14 asylum-seekers were arrested and two security guards were injured. It is believed the brawl started because asylum-seekers were unhappy with the food.

Some 500 people fled from another shelter in the Berlin suburb of Spandau after asylum-seekers began fighting each other with fire extinguishers. In a third incident, nine asylum-seekers were arrested and five people were injured at a shelter in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein, where asylum-seekers from Syria and Afghanistan began fighting.

It comes after lengthy efforts by Chinese officials to legitimise the yuan, which critics say has been kept artificially cheap to artificially boost exports in the world’s second-largest economy. China has lobbied hard for the currency to be included in the list, which at present is made up of just the dollar, the euro, the pound and the Japanese yen. The list has not been altered since 2000, when the euro replace the franc and deutschmark.

While being a part of the club carries no particular conditions, and is largely symbolic, the yuan will contribute to the value of the special drawing right – a weighted average of the currencies – which the IMF uses to price its emergency loans.

More significant is the diplomatic legitimacy that inclusion grants the yuan, whose value is carefully managed by Chinese authorities. Officials devalued it over the summer in a shock move to respond to slowing growth, but it is still seen as tightly controlled with the country’s central bank lacking transparency.

Nevertheless, the downing of a Russian Sukhoi Su-24 by Turkish jets marked the first attack on a Russian fighter aircraft by a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member state since 1953. Although this incident is not by itself sufficient to provoke an armed conflict between Turkey and Russia, it illustrates the main danger confronting the world in Syria: namely a conflagration between regional powers, many of which are armed with nuclear weapons.

The possibility of a serious conflagration between heavily armed regional actors will be removed only if and when the Syrian Civil War ends, even if that results in the loss of land to the so-called Islamic State. That must be the immediate goal of the Combined Joint Task Force and every other regional actor that wishes to see the end of ISIS. It is only after peace has been achieved in Syria that ISIS can be dealt with effectively.

In a statement released on Monday, prosecutors said the activities of the Open Society Institute and the Open Society Institute Assistance Foundation were a threat to the foundations of Russia’s Constitutional order and national security. They added that the Justice Ministry would be duly informed about these conclusions and would add the two groups to Russia’s list of undesirable foreign organizations. Are the "globalization gloves" finally coming off?

Will the US retaliate in kind and expand its year-long sanctions against Russia as a result as the world continues to careen into fragmented, multi-polar chaos? Or will there be another provocation between NATO-member Turkey and Russia as a result, perhaps one involving Russian ship transit through the Boshporus? With events now moving fast, we should have an answer in the very near future.

According to Amnesty International, since the beginning of the Syrian civil war Saudi Arabia has not accepted a single Syrian refugee. Neither has Kuwait. Neither has Qatar. Neither has the United Arab Emirates. These nations are absolutely swimming in money, and yet they have slammed the door on these desperately needy Islamic refugees. So what precisely does that tell us?

When I first learned about this, I was quite upset. So much pressure is being put on the US, Europe and other wealthy nations to take in vast numbers of Syrian refugees, and yet the wealthiest Islamic nations in the Middle East are completely shunning them.

To be honest, if people are leaving Syria because they want to get away from ISIS, then they probably wouldn’t want to go to Saudi Arabia. Yes, things are certainly more peaceful in Saudi Arabia than in Syria at the moment, but the truth is that the Saudis and ISIS have much in common. Both embrace a radical version of Sunni Islam that is more than a little bit frightening, and both are run by religious fanatics that are absolutely ruthless.

The French government spent money like drunken sailors; they had substantial welfare programs, free hospitals, and grand monuments. They held vast territories overseas, engaged in constant warfare, and even had their own intrusive intelligence service that spied on King and subject alike. Of course, they couldn’t pay for any of this.

French budget deficits were out of control, and they resorted to going heavily into debt and rapidly debasing their currency. Stop me when this sounds familiar. The French economy ultimately failed, bringing with it a 26-year period of hyperinflation, civil war, military conquest, and genocide.

History is full of examples, from ancient Mesopotamia to the Soviet Union, which show that whenever societies reach unsustainable levels of resource consumption and allocation, they collapse. Today’s system is just a 19th century model applied to a 21st century society. I mean – a room full of men making decisions about how much money to print? It’s so antiquated it’s almost comical.

But given that the majority of Western governments borrow money just to pay interest on money they’ve already borrowed, it’s obvious the current game is almost finished.

Although it might seem like science fiction, researchers have already proven that the diabetes drug metformin extends the life of animals, and the Food and Drug Administration in the US has now given the go-ahead for a trial to see if the same effects can be replicated in humans. If successful it will mean that a person in their 70s would be as biologically healthy as a 50-year-old.

Ageing expert Professor Gordon Lithgow, of the Buck Institute for Research on Ageing in California, is one of the study advisers. He said: "If you target an ageing process and you slow down ageing then you slow down all the diseases and pathology of ageing as well."

"That's revolutionary. That's never happened before. I have been doing research into ageing for 25 years and the idea that we would be talking about a clinical trial in humans for an anti-ageing drug would have been thought inconceivable. But there is every reason to believe it's possible."

Now news of the 'miracle' has reached the Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City which is investigating the incident. Catholics believe the wafer, also referred to as the host or sacramental bread becomes the body of Jesus Christ in the Catholic communion ceremony. It is consumed with wine which is transformed into his blood.

The so-called miracle began after a young parishioner returned his host to the priest at St Francis Xavier Church during communion, who then placed it in a glass of water, Fox 13 reported. Once consecrated a host is sacred and therefore Catholics believe a leftover or unwanted wafer must not be simply thrown away but should be dissolved in water until it no longer has the appearance of bread. It can then be poured down a special sink which drains onto the ground rather than a sewer.

However, on this occasion, the priest claims that not only did the thin wafer stay intact, it began to turn blood red. News quickly spread and believers from across the community began flocking to the church to see the 'miracle' on display. The Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City has now seized the host and is investigating the incident. There are no current plans to return the wafer to public display.

The EEC in the 1960s and 1970s was in no position to regenerate anyone’s economy. It spent most of its meagre resources on agriculture and fisheries and had no means or policies to generate economic growth. When growth did happen, it did not come from the EU. From Ludwig Erhard's supply-side reforms in West Germany in 1948 to Thatcher's privatisation of nationalised industry in the Eighties, European growth came from reforms introduced by individual countries which were were copied elsewhere. EU policy has always been either irrelevant or positively detrimental (as was the case with the euro).

In 1973, when we entered the EEC, our annual national growth rate in real terms was a record 7.4 per cent. The present Chancellor would die for such figures. So the economic basket-case argument doesn’t work. What about geopolitics? What argument in the cold light of hindsight could have been so compelling as to make us kick our Second-World-War Commonwealth allies in the teeth to join a combination of Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, Germany and Italy?

Four of these countries held no international weight whatsoever. Germany was occupied and divided. France, meanwhile, had lost one colonial war in Vietnam and another in Algeria. De Gaulle had come to power to save the country from civil war. Most realists must surely have regarded these states as a bunch of losers. The answer is that Harold Macmillan and his closest advisers were part of an intellectual tradition that saw the salvation of the world in some form of world government based on regional federations. He was also a close acquaintance of Jean Monnet, who believed the same. It was therefore Macmillan who became the representative of the European federalist movement in the British cabinet.

According to Monnet’s chief aide and biographer, Francois Duchene, both the Labour and Liberal Parties later did the same. Meanwhile the Earl of Gosford, one of Macmillan’s foreign policy ministers in the House of Lords, actually informed the House that the aim of the government’s foreign policy was world government. Monnet’s Action Committee was also given financial backing by the CIA and the US State Department. The Anglo-American establishment was now committed to the creation of a federal United States of Europe.

Today, this is still the case. Powerful international lobbies are already at work attempting to prove that any return to democratic self-government on the part of Britain will spell doom. American officials have already been primed to state that such a Britain would be excluded from any free trade deal with the USA and that the world needs the TTIP trade treaty which is predicated on the survival of the EU.

The international coalition behind Macmillan and Heath will find things a lot more difficult this time round — especially given the obvious difficulties of the Eurozone, the failure of EU migration policy and the lack of any coherent EU security policy. Most importantly, having been fooled once, the British public will be much more difficult to fool again.

The Prince of Wales is desperate to become Head of the Commonwealth when he becomes king, but the post is not hereditary and many leaders want an elected head to make the organisation more democratic. He is accompanying his mother on a visit to Malta for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting, where he will try to strengthen his hand by meeting as many leaders as possible in person.

It is only the fourth time he has attended one of the summits, but he will stand in for the Queen at the next two gatherings as they will be too far away for her to make the trip. In a speech to declare the summit open, the Queen said she could not “wish to have been better supported and represented in the Commonwealth than by The Prince of Wales who continues to give so much to it with great distinction”.

It comes as Eurocrats try to bolster the EU’s position as a global player amid criticisms that the Paris terror attacks and the migrant crisis prove that the open borders is a failing concept. It also emerged that Europeans face having their fingerprints checked every time they travel to Britain under new security proposals confirmed by the Home Office.

The MEPs’ vote, prompted by Finn Paavo Väyrynen, was met with incredulity last night. David Campbell Bannerman MEP, co-chairman of the influential Eurosceptic Conservatives for Britain group, said: “This is an outrageous and dangerous powergrab from the EU. Britain has already been forced to relinquish its seat at the World Trade Organisation by the EU, which means we have lost our ability to negotiate international trade deals. The EU is always trespassing in nation state areas. This is proof of a determined push towards ever-closer union and creation of an EU superstate.

“It would spell the end of Britain being at the heart of international defence and security at a time when the world faces an unprecedented terrorist threat.” Conservative Gerald Howarth MP said: “It’s an absurdity. Europe is not a nation state and it is preposterous impertinence to suggest they should supplant two leading nation states which are both nuclear powers.”

Ukip leader Nigel Farage added: “I warned last year that Brussels wanted a European army and a seat on the UN Security Council. Nick Clegg called me a liar and said I was talking a dangerous fantasy. There are no sensitivities towards any British interests in the European Parliament. They are hell-bent on building a United States of Europe.”

In the most drastic step so far, the Kremlin revealed that Vladimir Putin has twice refused to take calls from Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, until he apologises that a Turkish warplane shot down a Russian military jet on Tuesday. Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Mr Putin, told reporters in Moscow that the president had twice refused to take phone calls from Mr Erdogan since the aircraft was shot down. "We see Turkey's unwillingness to simply apologise for the incident with the plane," Yuri Ushakov said.

Mr Erdogan sounded a conciliatory note on Friday, saying he "attached a lot of importance to our relations with Russia" and that he wanted to meet Mr Putin on Monday during the climate summit in Paris next week. But he also warned Mr Putin was “playing with fire” following Russian authorities’ arrest of 39 Turkish businessmen for visa violations on Thursday. "It is playing with fire to go as far as mistreating our citizens who have gone to Russia," Mr Erdogan told supporters during a speech in Bayburt, in north-east Turkey.

Since the incident, the war of words between the two countries and their leaders increased with Mr Erdogan accusing the Russian president of slander. Mr Putin suggested Turkey bought oil from Isil and was an "accomplice" of terrorists. Mr Putin said on Tuesday that Isil was "protected by the military of an entire nation", alluding to Turkey as he said Ankara had "stabbed Russia in the back". “Isil has big money, hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars, from selling oil. In addition they are protected by the military of an entire nation. One can understand why they are acting so boldly and blatantly.”

They are offering the huge country £2 billion in cash, visa-free travel for its citizens and speeded up membership talks if it clamps down on people trafficking and migration across its borders. The deal was expected to be signed off by political leaders at a summit in Brussels last night, European Council president Donald Tusk said. The plan, spearheaded by German chancellor Angela Merkel, will make Muslim-dominated Turkey the EU’s 29th member state.

The deal has provoked anger and prompted fears that Europe’s doors will be left wide open to Islamic extremists. Ukip leader Nigel Farage said: “This isn’t just a deal to deal with migration across the Mediterranean. What Merkel is proposing is that we fast track Turkey as members of the EU. What that will mean is 75 million people who will have freedom of movement to come to the rest of Europe and to this country.”

Speaking to Dermot Murnaghan on Sky News yesterday Mr Farage added: “A recent reputable poll showed that eight per cent of the Turkish population are Islamic State sympathisers. We must be literally mad.”

At the heart of the EU’s proposed deal are Turkey’s promises to tighten border controls in return for £2.1 billion plus other benefits including speeding up work on its bid to join the EU and a push to help win visa-free access for Turks. In exchange, Turkey, which has more than two million Syrian refugees, would increase patrols in the Aegean and at land borders, as well as cracking down on people-trafficking gangs.

He claims to be fighting ISIS, and yet an endless parade of trucks carrying oil that ISIS has stolen goes back and forth over the Turkish border with his full knowledge and approval. Barack Obama is very much aware that Turkey is buying oil from ISIS and he refuses to do anything about it. If the Republicans are looking for a scandal which could completely wreck Obama’s presidency and essentially secure the 2016 election for them, this is it.

Do you want to know why the Turkish government ordered the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 bomber on Tuesday? It is because the Russians have been bombing the trucks that transport oil from ISIS into Turkey. The Turks claim that the Russian aircraft violated their airspace for approximately 17 seconds. But as Paul Craig Roberts has pointed out, in order for the SU-24 to fly only 1.15 miles in 17 seconds would mean that it was flying at stall speed the entire time, which is ridiculous. Clearly there is something very fishy with the official story, and the Russians say that they never violated Turkey’s airspace at any time.

The government of Turkey desperately wants to see the Assad regime toppled, and so they are training ISIS militants, funneling weapons to them, buying their oil, and tending to their wounded in Turkish hospitals. This is being done with the full knowledge and complicity of the Obama administration, and it is a betrayal on a level that is almost unspeakable.