What’s happening is easy to imagine: faced with the uncertainty of an election that’s been drummed up as the most formidable threat to Europe since the Red Army stood ready to pour through the Fulda Gap at a moment’s notice, Greek citizens are making a run to the banks. Why are they so scared?

Personally, I don’t believe that many people buy into a return to the drachma. What most fear, and rightly so, are capital controls. Greeks remember very well what happened in Cyprus in 2013, when local banks were given a big thumbs-up from Europe to help themselves to their depositors’ accounts. Cyprus and Greece are very closely tied, and many Greeks consider the island a “sister-nation.”

What little trust remained in banks in Greece died that day. People have been nervously looking for signs something similar may happen again in their home country. And they resolved to act at the first sign of danger: banks cannot confiscate money you have under your mattress. Cash can be hidden away.

"We are in a world that is dangerously unanchored," said William White, the Swiss-based chairman of the OECD's Review Committee. "We're seeing true currency wars and everybody is doing it, and I have no idea where this is going to end." Mr White is a former chief economist to the Bank for International Settlements - the bank of central banks - and currently an advisor to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He said the global elastic has been stretched even further than it was in 2008 on the eve of the Great Recession. The excesses have reached almost every corner of the globe, and combined public/private debt is 20 percent of GDP higher today. "We are holding a tiger by the tail," he said.

"QE is not going to help at all. Europe has far greater reliance than the US on small and medium-sized companies (SMEs) and they get their money from banks, not from the bond market," he said. "Even after the stress tests the banks are still in 'hunkering down mode'. They are not lending to small firms for a variety of reasons. The interest rate differential is still going up," he said.

Of all the legion of bad outcomes that result from political ambition, the most striking of our times is surely the euro, an unashamedly political project bolted on to sovereign European nations of long and proud competing traditions in the hope of making them more like the United States, at least in terms of economic prowess. The thing about QE is that it seems to be quite effective when in the midst of a crisis. By propping up the banks, it prevents the worst consequences of a credit crunch.

But how meaningful is it when trying to further stimulate demand thereafter? There is plainly a demand problem in the eurozone, but it is worth pointing out that core inflation is now lower in the US than in Europe, and not that far off in Britain. Not much effect from QE there, then. As it happens, it is likely there will be some kind of mild, cyclical rebound in the eurozone this year, if for no other reason than the much lower energy prices. For this, the ECB will no doubt take credit for saving the day with QE.

Throughout all these contortions, one thing remains clear: underlying problems and contradictions have not gone away. Any respite will be temporary. Europe has fallen prey to a version of Trotsky’s permanent revolution. Regrettably, today’s version is more accurately characterised as perpetual crisis.

And these are just the losses that we know about so far. It will be many months before the full scope of the financial devastation caused by the Swiss National Bank is fully revealed. But of course the same thing could be said about the crash in the price of oil that we have witnessed in recent weeks. These two “black swan events” have set financial dominoes in motion all over the globe. At this point we can only guess how bad the financial devastation will ultimately be.

But everyone agrees that it will be bad.

In fact, thanks to Abenomics, in the past two years Japan's holdings of US paper have soared by $150 billion, as the BOJ has forced pension funds, banks and citizens to chase higher yielding US paper, while Chinese holdings haven't budged by an inch.

At this rate, look for a historic inversion next month when the December TIC data is released and which, all else equal, will show that for the first time since the financial crisis, China will no longer be America's largest creditor, a spot that will be taken over by insolvent Japan. Yes, the same Japan which as we showed before, is forced to monetize all of its own gross treasury issuance or else suffer a complete bond market collapse.

Today Major General Eyal Ben Reuven, a former deputy head in the Israeli Defense Forces, accused the senior military figures of meeting to plot an attack on Israel. He added that the commanders' decision to meet in Syria could mean that a 'high-level' and 'sophisticated' attack on Israel's northern border is 'imminent'. General Mohammad Ali Jafari, head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, said: 'These martyrdoms proved the need to stick with jihad. The Zionists must await ruinous thunderbolts.

'The Revolutionary Guards will fight to the end of the Zionist regime... We will not rest easy until this epitome of vice is totally deleted from the region's geopolitics.' Israeli troops have been marshalled along the country's northern border, while an Iron Dome missile launcher has been deployed to destroy any incoming rockets. Senior Iranian politicians are said to be incensed at the death of Allahdadi, which they confirmed yesterday, saying he had been 'martyred' in the name of his country.

Pope Francis has captured the hearts, or the grudging respect of, at the very least, billions of Catholic faithful and nonbelievers alike through his humility, compassion and sincerity. He has brought his Church closer to the people, engaged in dialogue with dissidents and nonbelievers, and opened up his Church to the possibility of reform, all while continuing to defend the core values of the institution. In a cynical, hyper-cosmopolitan world, the Pope stands above the fray, breathing life into an institution that has struggled to maintain its relevance for decades.

Through his leadership Pope Francis has reinvented the papacy, transforming it into perhaps the most influential office in the world, a distinction last held by the papacy during the height of the Holy Roman Empire.

UK demand hit 52.54 gigawatts (GW) between 5pm and 5.30pm on Monday, according to official data from the National Grid. But wind contributed just 0.573GW during the same time, just over 1 percent of the total. In stark contrast, gas accounted for 42 percent, coal for 29 percent, nuclear for 16 percent, pumped storage and hydro for 5 percent, and interconnector imports for 5 percent (the total doesn’t quite add up because of rounding).

For all the vast subsidies it has been given, the wind industry is not fit for purpose. While it is clearly able to contribute during some periods, it cannot always do so and its cost is high, hitting the poor and taxpayers in an unacceptable manner. We will always need to rely on fossil fuel for the vast bulk of our energy consumption.

Harnessing solar power, rather than wind, is the real game-changer: within the next five years, it is likely to become competitive with other forms of energy across Europe. It will no longer require subsidies and will thus have emerged as a proper free-market solution. But even solar is of little use when there is no sun.

"This event is an extraordinary opportunity and keeps its validity because it's able to attract so many interesting people from the world of business and government and other communities for a relatively informal and open conversation," said Ian Goldin, a Davos veteran, and the director of the Oxford Martin School, a research institute attached to Oxford University. This year there is no shortage of global wounds that require bandaging, if not tourniquets, at the 45th Davos meeting. As delegates get ready to assemble high up in the Swiss Alps, the world appears on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"I think it's clear the conversations in Davos will be more serious than in recent years because the threats appear more imminent," Goldin said. Islamic extremists show no sign of slackening their barbarous pace, as evidenced in the recent attacks in Paris and Nigeria. Fears have resurfaced over Greece's upcoming elections and what they might mean for the future of the eurozone. Plummeting commodities prices have thrown emerging markets into disarray.

Economic growth in China has stalled. Cybersecurity looks increasingly perilous. A global Ebola crisis claimed more than 8,400 lives. Russia's proxies in Ukraine may sow fresh volatility. And with 2014 the hottest year on record, there is of course climate change. "Decision-makers meeting in Davos must focus on ways to reduce climate risk while building more efficient, cleaner and lower-carbon economies," former Mexican president Felipe Calderón told USA TODAY. "They also need to boost growth at a time of growing economic uncertainty."

But Davos is more than a well-heeled, high-altitude setting to recount all that's wrong with the world. Klaus Schwab, the German-born founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, said this year's theme — the not-atypically vague "New Global Context" — is partly about creating the conditions to restore confidence and trust in the world's future. But does enough get achieved at the forum to justify the approximately $40,000 ticket cost?

“People shouldn’t stay together if the conditions aren’t the same as when things started. It’s easy to fall in love and more difficult to stay together,” he said in Paris this weekend. “I am for the respect of member states, respect between the institutions and member states. I am against all forms of grovelling.”

Mr Juncker, whose appointment to the EU’s top job was opposed by David Cameron, told an elite audience of French officials that he was ready to discuss British demands for treaty change, but set out “red lines”. In a blow to the Prime Minister, the commission president said the EU would reject, without debate, Conservative calls to change treaties to give national authorities more powers to stop-large scale inflows of migrants from Eastern Europe.

“When one mentions the end of the free circulation of workers, there can be no debate, dialogue or compromise,” he said. “We can fight against abuses but the EU won’t change the treaties to satisfy the whim of certain politicians.” Opinion polls show a narrow lead in support for a British exit from the EU ahead of May’s general election.

Europe's "crisis of democracy" is a gap between elites and voters, EIU says. There is "a gaping hole at the heart of European politics where big ideas should be", it adds. Low turnouts at the polls and sharp falls in the membership of traditional parties are key factors in the phenomenon. The United Kingdom - going to the polls in May - is "on the cusp of a potentially prolonged period of political instability", according to the Economist researchers. They say there is a much higher than usual chance that the election will produce an unstable government - predicting that the populist UK Independence Party (UKIP) will take votes from both the Conservatives and Labour.

But the most immediate political challenge - and test of how far the growing populism translates into success at the polls - is in Greece. A snap general election takes place there on 25 January, triggered by parliament's failure to choose a new president in December. Opinion polls suggest that the far left, populist Syriza could emerge as the strongest party. If it did and was able to form a government, the EIU says this would send shock waves through the European Union and act as a catalyst for political upheaval elsewhere.

"The election of a Syriza government would be highly destabilising, both domestically and regionally. It would almost certainly trigger a crisis in the relationship between Greece and its international creditors, as debt write-offs form one of the core planks of its policy platform," the EIU says. "With similar anti-establishment parties gaining ground rapidly in a number of other countries scheduled to hold elections in 2015, the spill-over effects from a further period of Greek turmoil could be significant."

Other examples of European elections with potential for unpredictable results cited by EIU include polls in Denmark, Finland, Spain, France, Sweden, Germany and Ireland. "There is a common denominator in these countries: the rise of populist parties," the EIU says,

The group has been training new recruits and defectors from smaller rebel factions in Qalamoun, a militarily strategically important province in the south-west of Syria that borders Lebanon. Several of those smaller rebel groupings, some aligned with the more moderate "Free Syrian Army", have capitulated to the jihadists in recent months with many of their fighters joining Isil.

The growth of the group in the area means Sunni Isil fighters in Syria are now at the edge of the Lebanese heartland of its Shia arch enemy Hizbollah, whose men are fighting alongside the regime of Bashar al-Assad. “The moderate rebel groups on the border have collapsed, and their men have joined Isil,” said Ahmed Flity, the deputy mayor of Arsal, a Lebanese border town that has effectively been cut off from the rest of the country by security forces, because of the threat from jihadists in the area.