Lieutenant John Walker told reporters that an 18-month-old girl was hit in the neck, an 11-year-old boy was shot in the leg and back and a 12-year-old-boy was struck in the chest. There were also apparently two blasts from a shotgun. It is remarkable that no one was killed. Police believe that the gunfire was a result of ongoing feuding between two groups of people.

The two shootings constituted black on black violence, and as such do not neatly fit the constant barrage of race baiting division currently being pumped out by the mainstream media. This is why you probably didn’t hear about the incidents until now.

Whether Greece exits the eurozone or not (and it is an increasingly absurd charade), there remain a number of uncomfortable truths that the rest of the countries of Europe, whether in the eurozone, the EU or neither will have to confront. The first is that Greece is a failing state, something that will have implications far beyond the merely financial. Long before the financial crisis hit the global economy in 2008-09, Greece was in trouble.

The combination of structural economic weakness and high structural deficits were compounded by a culture where tax evasion and corruption are both widespread and, to a large extent, acceptable. In the six years from 2004, Greek output increased in nominal terms by 40 per cent, while government spending rose by 87 per cent and tax revenues rose by a mere 31 per cent. The European authorities charged with overseeing the single currency should have acted then. Their failure to do so has been partly to blame for today’s crisis.

It does not matter how much money is now thrown at Greece, Thessalonica will not be Düsseldorf any time soon. The cultural gap between the hard-working and profit focused north of Europe could not be more different from this southerly neighbour where masseurs can retire early on a state pension because it is regarded as hard and damaging physical labour.

A Grexit will be no panacea, and might even create its own array of difficulties. Even if Greece leaves the single currency, it will still have phenomenal financial problems, at least in the short and medium term, which need to be addressed and the danger is that it will suck in both Chinese and Russian money, becoming a strategic liability for the rest of Europe and the Nato alliance more widely. Russia is, for example, keen to have allies who will block the renewal of EU sanctions over Ukraine.

The uncomfortable truth to be faced is that the euro is a fundamentally flawed project. This, of course, comes as no surprise to those of us who have been predicting from its very inception that it spells trouble. The haste in which it was created and the fact that it was always more a political project than an economic one, has built chronic instability into its architecture. We have now reached the point where the euro does not have a problem – the euro is the problem.

The attempt to create a Europe at one with itself, living prosperously and happily under a new kind of unelected government, has led it to become such a sad, unhappy, divided place, economically in decline compared with the outside world, ruled by a strange form of government it no longer trusts, respects or understands.

Similarly, the last desperate throw by the EU and the US to achieve a world agreement next December to “halt climate change” is not going to succeed, not just because the “science” on which it is based is so increasingly questionable, but because the emerging powers of the East, led by India and China, are simply not prepared to go along with it. If the West wishes to commit economic suicide, so be it. In their own national interest, they are not willing to follow.

In fact, what we are seeing here is a geopolitical shift of huge proportions. So lost is the West in its bubbles of self-deceiving fantasy that the hegemony it so long exercised over the rest of the world is passing to the world outside it, to India and China, even, in its own way, to Russia, still a nuclear power which can prevent us pushing too hard in our support for a bankrupt Ukrainian dictatorship, and which also still supplies Europe with a third of the gas it needs to continue functioning.

How forlorn in light of all this looks that would-be well-meaning 300-page document in which the Pope, under the spell of his chief scientific adviser, a fanatical German climate activist called Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, calls for an end to use of the very fossil fuels which keep the Vatican’s own lights on. In asking us to pray for that global climate treaty, Pope Francis solemnly trots out all those familiar plaints about “melting polar ice caps”, “rising sea levels”, unprecedented droughts, “extreme weather events” and the rest of that greenie litany which has no basis in honest science whatever.

Eric King: “You mentioned that we are in unprecedented times. And the concern is that when the 2008 collapse unfolded there was all this money printing and the banks were bailed out. It really fell on the shoulders of the taxpayers, but the concern as you said is that this leverage is growing. There are over one quadrillion dollars of derivatives. With the leverage totally ramped up in (terms of) the central banks’ (balance sheets), who will save the financial system (this time around)? Who will save the banks? There are all these bail-ins that have been written into law in the West and it seems like the next move is just to steal money from the public. Who will save the system this time when it implodes?

Nomi Prins: “When it implodes it will implode more dangerously. The IMF and the Fed have different ideas about whether rates should stay low or go up. In this particular round the IMF won. They want rates to stay low because they don’t know what’s going to happen to the global financial system if the availability of cheap money goes away….

“Right now everyone knows, whether they admit it or not, that (cheap money) is the only thing that’s keeping this (global financial) system afloat. It isn’t production. It isn’t savings of individuals because nobody has any money to save. So the only policy that these central banks have is to continue to do more of the same. And the only thing that does is continue to push this next crisis, or the second leg of the current crisis as I look at it, down the road. There is no saving this (global financial) system.

Ian Spreadbury, who invests more than £4 billion of investors’ money across a handful of bond funds for Fidelity, including the flagship Moneybuilder Income fund, is concerned that a “systemic event” could rock markets, possibly similar in magnitude to the financial crisis of 2008, which began in Britain with a run on Northern Rock.

“Systemic risk is in the system and as an investor you have to be aware of that,” he told Telegraph Money. The best strategy to deal with this, he said, was for investors to spread their money widely into different assets, including gold and silver, as well as cash in savings accounts. But he went further, suggesting it was wise to hold some “physical cash”, an unusual suggestion from a mainstream fund manager.

But then there is the shock event. Daily Telegraph columnist Jeremy Warner also captured some of the concerns this week when he wrote that the trigger for an “inevitable correction” could come from “a clear blue sky – a completely unanticipated event”.

Swedish lender Handelsbanken has one of the world’s strongest credit ratings, and prides itself on prudent lending standards. It sailed through the crash in good health, giving its British boss Anders Bouvin more credibility than most in warning of the perils of chasing high volumes of loans.

“It was like a buffalo herd galloping, in 2006, 2007. Nobody looked for direction, nobody looked where they were going, they were just following the one in front - and nobody saw the cliff coming,” Mr Bouvin said. “Our managers stood on the sides, with no target from head office. And they knew they would have to take responsibility for any bad credits.”

As a result, the bank was able to set forwards after the crash, filling the gaps left by the withdrawal of the big British banks. Handelsbanken increased its number of branches from 40 in 2007 to 197 today.

"As a lawyer I think it is a disaster area and as a Christian believer and teacher I think it is a disaster area," said Ovey, who also worked as a parliamentary draftsman in the 1980s. "There has got be a better way to do it." The proposal is expected to defend what it has outlined as "British values," such as democracy, tolerance and the rule of law, and crack down against views that go against those values.

Ovey warned, however, that unless clarified, the measures could very easily be used to target preachers and the curriculum of colleges such as his. There have been a number of recent cases where Christian preachers have been arrested after people complained their message was homophobic or condemnatory.

Ovey added that it could also lead to the government establishing a link between the Church's teachings against abortion and violent anti-abortion groups. "That is essentially a government saying trust us with your civil liberties. I would say, frankly, human experience tells us the last thing you ever want to do is trust a government with your civil liberties," he said.

The whole Jade Helm drill is unconstitutional on its face… it violates Posse Comitatus and a whole bunch of other regulations that govern our Constitution… I am, as an American, personally insulted.

The American people are nowhere near moving to revolutionary status. We’re not on the verge of a civil war, although this could provoke a move to this direction and could actually cause a civil war… what they’re planning to do to us. This is totally a provocative move on the part of the Obama administration… misusing our military in violation of the law. I believe Obama is trying to force a confrontation so that he has a pretext to declare martial law.

"If you trust only men you have lost," he told the young people in a long, rambling talk about war, trust and politics after putting aside his prepared address. "It makes me think of… people, managers, businessmen who call themselves Christian and they manufacture weapons. That leads to a bit a distrust, doesn't it?" he said to applause.

He also criticized those who invest in weapons industries, saying "duplicity is the currency of today… they say one thing and do another."

“I look at the markets as being unstable, which means some days they go up a lot and some days they go down rapidly, but they don’t advance very far when you look at real growth,” Paul said on CNBC’s ‘Futures Now’ on Thursday. “The [Federal Reserve] won’t allow this market to drop. This is why I’ve always leaned toward the assumption that the Fed is never going to raise interest rates deliberately. I think the market will raise interest rates.”

On Wednesday, the Fed released a statement that indicated it would not raise interest rates at this time, leading stocks to surge on Thursday. The Nasdaq topped its intraday high from March 2000, while the S&P 500 closed less than 1 percent off its all-time high. Paul blamed the Chairman of the Federal Reserve for causing economic instability, noting that their every word can be interpreted by the market actors in radical and unexpected ways, leading to “havoc.” Market-determined interest rates, he suggested, would lead to more stability and better results for the economy.

One of the things that Paul is adamant will happen is that the stock market will crash, bringing the entire US ‒ and possibly world ‒ economy with it. “It could be tomorrow, it could be a month, it could be a couple years because it all depends on a psychological acceptance of the system,” he said. “I don’t think there’s any way to know what the time is but, you know, after 35 years of a gigantic bull market in bonds, believe me, they cannot reverse history. You cannot print money forever and deceive the markets forever."

The Israeli prime minister used this as an opportunity to lobby against the nuclear deal that Mr Obama is seeking to negotiate with Tehran. Then there is also the moribund peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Earlier this month, President Obama gave a revealing interview to Israel's Channel 2 television station.

It was an opportunity to speak directly to the Israeli public; to try to convince them of his fundamental support for the Jewish state. But he injected a warning note too. He argued that if the current "status-quo" between Israel and the Palestinians were not resolved, then demographics and the frustration of the Palestinians would force Israel into a choice "about the nature of the Israeli state and its character". There was a risk, he said, of Israel losing its "essential values".

And he went further, warning that there could be more immediate diplomatic consequences too. If there were no progress towards peace, Mr Obama said, there would be an impact upon "how we approach defending Israel on the international stage round the Palestinian issue".

Given the history of Iran funding global terrorists such as Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, and many more over the years, world leaders are left wondering just what is going through President Obama’s mind when it comes to pushing this deal. Iran has been vocal about their opposition to the existence of Israel (one of the strongest and most reliable allies to the US). Any deal with Iran that allows it to have nuclear capabilities is tantamount to putting a gun in the hands of a killer. You just know it will be used.

There is an Indian Christian religious leader, Dr Kilari Anand Paul – the President of the Global Peace Initiative, who is asking foes to join hands in support of Israel and against Iran. K A Paul was called “the most popular evangelical minister” by The New Republic Magazine, after he counseled Liberia’s Dictator Charles Taylor into stepping down, and convinced Haitian Rebel Leader Guy Philippe to lay down his arms. He has gathered a coalition of world leaders and religious figures in an effort to stop the United States from signing a nuclear deal with Iran.

While the clock is ticking for an agreement to be finalized between the United States and Iran, Dr Paul, along with religious leaders representing Islam, Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism, and others, as well as leaders from Sudan and the Arab led Gulf Cooperation Council have come together to stop a nuclear deal with Iran. Remarkably, Paul is billing this quest as a drive to save Israel and the Middle East, and he seemingly has support.

It is time to call things by their correct name. A nuclear war in the Middle East is no longer inconceivable. This is the case, moreover, even if Israel were somehow to remain the only nuclear weapons state in the chaotic region. How is this possible? Significantly, a bellum atomicum could arrive in Israel not only as a “bolt from the blue” enemy nuclear missile attack, but also as a result, intended or unwitting, of escalation.

If, for example, certain Arab/Islamic states were to begin hostilities with conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem could decide to respond, sooner or later, with thoughtfully calculated and correspondingly graduated nuclear reprisals. Alternatively, if these enemy states were to commence conflict by launching large-scale conventional attacks upon Israel, Jerusalem’s conventional reprisals could then be met, sometime in the not-too-distant future, with certain enemy nuclear counter-strikes.

If it hadn’t been for Israel’s earlier preemptive operations against both Iraq and Syria (Operations Opera and Orchard, respectively), the Middle East could already have been rife with Arab/Islamist nuclear forces. Looking back upon these uniquely focused expressions of national self-defense, Israel had effectively ensured that such assorted terror groups as Islamic State, al-Qaida, Hamas and Hezbollah are not presently nuclear. The still generally unrecognized benefits of these extraordinary operations have impacted not only Israel, but also the United States and its allies, all now fighting jihadists in a rapidly disintegrating region.

The regional future, however, is apt to be less secure. For one thing, with a prospectively nuclear Iran, the derivative risks of nuclear terrorism could become intolerable. Some of these newer risks might not stay contained to the Middle East. In some form or other, they could carry over to the scarcely protected American or European homelands.