For months, I have been warning that the crash in the price of oil would be extremely deflationary and would have severe consequences for the global economy. Nations such as Japan, Canada, Brazil and Russia have already plunged into recession, and more than half of all major global stock market indexes are down at least 10 percent year to date. The first major global financial crisis since 2009 has begun, and things are only going to get worse as we head into 2016.

The global head of oil research at Societe Generale, Mike Wittner, says that his “head is spinning” after the stunning drop in the price of oil on Monday. Just like during the last financial crisis, we have broken the psychologically important 40 dollar barrier, and there are concerns that we could go much lower from here…

One analyst told CNBC that he believes that we could soon see the price of US oil go all the way down to 32 dollars a barrel…Analysts at Goldman Sachs are even more pessimistic than that. According to Business Insider, they are saying that we could eventually see the price of oil go below 20 dollars a barrel…

That may sound really good to you, especially if you fill up your gas tank frequently. But the truth is that plunging oil prices are exceedingly bad for the US economy as a whole. In recent years, the energy industry has been the primary engine for the creation of good jobs in this country, and now those firms are having to lay off people at a frightening pace.

Indeed – the party is coming to an end, and a new financial crisis is playing out in textbook fashion right in front of our eyes. Hopefully you are already prepared for what is coming next, because it is going to be extremely painful for the US economy.

“I fear he may have made things worse in the minds of many Americans.” Rubio said “nothing that happened in the speech … is going to assuage people’s fears,” Breitbart reported. He slammed Obama for using ISIS and the war on terrorism as a means of pressing his own gun-control agenda, and said the White House has done nothing to adjust policy or strategy in recent months in response to the expansion of the terror group. He also criticized the president for suggesting America was guilty of bias against Muslims.

“We are at war with a radical jihadist group more capable than any terrorist group this nation has ever confronted,” Rubio said. “Where is there widespread evidence that we have a problem in America with discrimination against Muslims? … This is nothing but an effort to use this issue of terrorism as another way to try to push their agenda that they’ve been dying to push for the longest amount of time, and that’s gun control.”

Several sheriffs have sent out warnings in the wake of the recent Islamic terrorist attacks in Paris, Beirut, Mali and San Bernardino that Americans, now more than ever, need to get armed. The first was Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Arizona who on December 1 called for 250,000 armed citizens to stop terrorism and mass shootings in Arizona. This represents the number of concealed carry permit holders in Arizona. “I’m just talking about the areas where you have large crowds and someone pulls out the gun and starts shooting. Maybe somebody with a concealed weapon takes the guy down,” Arpaio told a local CBS affiliate.

Then came Ulster County Sheriff Paul Van Blarcum of upstate New York. In a December 3 Facebook post following the deadly jihadist attack on San Bernardino, he said the county’s 10,000 residents who have concealed-carry handgun permits should use them. “In light of recent events that have occurred in the United States and around the world I want to encourage citizens of Ulster County who are licensed to carry a firearm to please do so,” Van Blarcum said in his Facebook post.

“I urge you to responsibly take advantage of your legal right to carry a firearm. To ensure the safety of yourself and others, make sure you are comfortable and proficient with your weapon, and knowledgeable of the laws in New York State with regards to carrying a weapon and when it is legal to use it.”

David Lambon, who is the first lay headmaster at one of the UK’s top fee-paying Roman Catholic schools, said that instead schools should equip pupils with values that will guide them through the vicissitudes of life. Private schools have rushed to embrace mindfulness as a way to help pupils cope with the growing pressures of academia: from getting top grades to being bullied.

There is evidence the practice boosts the brain and it helps teenagers embrace self-control and resist peer pressure. However, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Lambon said: “Mindfulness has its place and young people do have a lot of stress these days. They need to be very resilient. I am not sure mindfulness is the only answer. There are alternatives.”

Mr Lambon isn't the first one to spot a flaw in mindfulness. Theodore Zeldin, an Oxford University academic, has said too many people were avoiding using their brains and instead escaping into a state of blank mental oblivion.

It was almost as if the reporters conducted breaking and entering of sorts. “This is all just to keep us busy while they do other more important things,” the video’s narrator said. “If they were ISIS terrorists then um I would think that the crime scene would be a lot more important than a scene where maybe there was a body found. If anything they would have been equal,” the voice on the video stated.

“It’s just mind-boggling.” The FBI literally left behind shredded documents, a check, passports, and other important evidence that definitely would have been included in a real investigation. And to top it all off reporters were allowed to roam free while broadcasting live on air through an active crime scene. This is just ludicrous people. There is something wrong here.

But that isn't the most interesting thing he said during a House of Lords debate. First, he acknowledged that air strikes might, among other results, fan the flames of religious zealotry, not just in the ranks of Islamic State but further afield. He also called for a "challenge" to the Gulf monarchies and their propagation of a hard-line version of Islam from which terrorists could draw inspiration.

He wasn't saying that those countries directly or consciously fuel terrorism, but it is still a bold statement from a member of the British establishment. Archbishop Welby is not over-stating the case, he is simply stating it, rather obliquely and politely. And it is a case that needs to be stated.

The pope paused on the threshold of the basilica for a long moment to pray, then became the first of an estimated 10 million Roman Catholic pilgrims who are expected to pass through the Holy Door — a symbol of the threshold to salvation — in the coming months. Francis was followed by a frail-looking Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI, who made a rare public appearance to participate in a religious ritual that dates back more than 700 years.

He was followed by cardinals, bishops, dignitaries, and then some of the 70,000 faithful who reached St Peter’s Square on a chilly and wet morning after passing through the airport-style security checks that have been instituted for what Rome’s police chief described as a “Jubilee in the time of ISIS,” as the Islamic State is known.

Since 1300, Jubilee years have been celebrated at 25- or 50-year intervals, with the occasional extraordinary Jubilee, like this one. Francis called for this Jubilee to highlight the world’s need for mercy, “the revolution of tenderness,” the pope said in an interview this month with the Italian magazine Credere. “It is the year of forgiveness, the year of reconciliation,” he said.

The two-year report found a decline in church goers - but a rise in Islam and other faiths - was the reason for a steep decline in Christianity. The findings have provoked fury among Cabinet ministers who say it is "seriously misguided", while the Church of England said it had been "hijacked" by humanists. Compiled by the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, the report suggested faith schools should be stripped of powers to select their own pupils because they are "socially divisive".

It said allowing schools to choose pupils by faith had "negative practical consequences". The report read: "It is in our view not clear that segregation of young people into faith schools has promoted greater cohesion or that it has not been socially divisive, leading to greater misunderstanding and tension. Selection by religion segregates children not only according to different religious heritage but also… by ethnicity and socio-economic background. This undermines equality of opportunity."

The report also called for religious studies in the classroom to teach how faith was used by extremists as a justification for terrorism. The teaching of religion in schools should be radically changed to make it more realistic and relevant as Britain becomes an increasingly secular country, the report said. A recruitment drive was needed for those teaching religion and belief so the subject can be treated "seriously and deeply in these unprecedented times of religious confusion and tension".

The central bank watchdog said emerging market households and businesses reliant on cheap debt faced a credit crunch that could trigger panic in a world of evaporating liquidity and fewer market makers. It warned that the "potential for spillovers" to emerging markets from higher US interest rates was larger now than it was during the so-called "taper tantrum" in 2013.

BIS data show the stock of dollar denominated debt rose to $9.8 trillion (£6.5 trillion) in the second quarter of 2015, with dollar credit to borrowers in emerging markets doubling since 2009 to more than $3 trillion. Tighter US policy and a stronger dollar would highlight financial vulnerabilities among domestic and foreign currency borrowers, the BIS said. According to the watchdog, total non-financial corporate debt in emerging markets, including dollar borrowing, currently stands at $23.5 trillion.

Monsanto has acted with severe negligence, and the hubris and supremacy of a corporation given personhood, but no longer. The Organic Consumers Association (OCA), IFOAM International Organics, Navdanya, Regeneration International (RI), and Millions Against Monsanto, along with dozens of global food, farming, and environmental justice groups announced at the United Nations conference held recently in Paris that an international court of lawyers and judges will assess Monsanto’s criminal liability for their atrocious acts.

The court, in The Hague, Netherlands, will use the UN’s ‘Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights’ developed in 2011 to assess damages for Monsanto’s acts against human life and the environment. The court will also rely on the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court in The Hague in 2002, and it will consider whether to reform international criminal law to include crimes against the environment, or ecocide, as a prosecutable criminal offense.

Speaking at the press conference, Ronnie Cummins, international director of the OCA (US) and Via Organica (Mexico), and member of the RI Steering Committee, said: “The time is long overdue for a global citizens’ tribunal to put Monsanto on trial for crimes against humanity and the environment… Corporate agribusiness, industrial forestry, the garbage and sewage industry and agricultural biotechnology have literally killed the climate-stabilizing, carbon-sink capacity of the Earth’s living soil.” The proceedings will take place on World Food Day, October 16, 2016.

Prices are poised to test lows last seen at the depths of the financial crisis in early 2009. The shares of oil companies plummeted in London, and US shale drillers went into freefall on Wall Street. “Lots of people said OPEC was dead. OPEC itself has just confirmed it,” said Jamie Webster, head of HIS Energy.

Mr Bahree [of HIS Energy] compares the demise of OPEC with the fall of the Texas Railroad Commission, the once mighty giant that set output and controlled world prices through the middle years of the 20th century. The Commission still exists, a forgotten shadow of its former self. Today it issues local permits.

Lynch referred to a recent report that found the Transportation Security Administration, which is overseen by DHS, failed to stop 95 percent of those who attempted to bring restricted items past airport security. “We had staffers go into eight different airports to test the department of homeland security screening process at major airports.

They had a 95 percent failure rate,” Lynch said. “We had folks — this was a testing exercise, so we had folks going in there with guns on their ankles, and other weapons on their persons, and there was a 95 percent failure rate.” Lynch said he has “very low confidence” in DHS based on its many failures over the years.

Mr Gramegna said this created "exceptional circumstances" that meant governments had to prioritise security over fiscal discipline and the so-called Stability and Growth Pact that limits budget deficits to 3 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). "It's obvious that what happened in the last couple of months was unforeseen to a very large extent," he said in an interview with the Telegraph.

"Receiving refugees that are fleeing from war - you cannot put out a sign and say 'I have a Stability and Growth Pact' - so it is obvious that these are exceptional circumstances and exceptional expenses that are unforeseen and still difficult to forecast because you don't know how long the refugees will stay and how long the situation will last." Francois Hollande, the French president, described the co-ordinated terrorist attacks in Paris last month that killed 130 people as an "act of war".

Mr Hollande took the unprecedented step of invoking a solidarity clause in the EU treaty that requires countries to do all they can to help when a member is the "victim of armed aggression". "The security pact takes precedence over the stability pact. France is at war,” he told the French parliament.

“The response [to Palestinian stabbing and car-ramming attacks] must not be of the kind – and this is what I say in other situations where the response is such that it results in extrajudicial executions or is disproportionate in that the number of people killed on that side exceeds the original number of deaths many times over,” Wallstrom said on Friday addressing Swedish lawmakers.

This statement of the Swedish official caused a highly negative reaction in Israel. “I condemn the statements, the scandalous statements, made by the foreign minister of Sweden,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday, as cited by Israel Hayom newspaper. "The [Swedish] foreign minister suggests that Israeli citizens simply give their necks to the murderers trying to stab them with knives. The citizens of Israel and its security forces have the right to defend themselves,” he added.

Netanyahu also claimed that everybody who commits a crime in Israel is brought in front of a judge. “The citizens of Israel have to deal with terrorism that receives support from irresponsible and false statements like that,” Netanyahu said.

The current wave of violence between Israelis and Palestinians erupted at the beginning of October when Israel tried to restrict access to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the Old City of Jerusalem. Since then, at least 102 Palestinians have been killed, most of whom are said to have been perpetrators of attacks on Israelis, as well as 19 Israelis and an American student, according to Reuters.