There’s consistently 1 country that doesn’t give a rat’s ass about the UN or what the rest of the world think and it’s mind boggling that the US seems to endorse their point of view when it comes to this seemingly ‘rogue’ behaviour. While politicians line up and do their talking head thing, people all over the world condemn the actions of all senseless violence. Israel, Israel, Israel.

Three artillery shells believed to have been fired by Israeli forces struck near the perimeter of a U.N. school in northern Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 30 people and wounding 55, a U.N. official said.

A short time later, another artillery shell struck inside a second U.N. school in Jabalya, but Ging said the boys’ prep school was empty at the time.

It was the third Israeli strike affecting a U.N. school in Gaza. Three Palestinian men, all members of the same family, were killed Monday night in Gaza City by a direct hit on an elementary school, the U.N. agency said.

The schools were in use as shelters for civilians fleeing the military operation. The buildings were “clearly marked” with U.N. flags, and the agency said it had given the global-positioning coordinates of all its schools to Israeli authorities.

The U.N. agency said 400 Palestinians were staying in the Asma Elementary School at the time of Monday night’s airstrike.

The latest incidents came as Israeli ground forces surrounded densely populated Gaza City after at least 50 airstrikes pounded the region

50 airstrikes in one day? it’s like shotting fish in a barrel and you’re complaining when some of the fish get angry? Seems to me that if i took over my neighbours home and then forced him to live in the basement closet with no little to no food, he’d react violently after a certain time. Me whining that his violence is unacceptable is a little laughable, don’t you think?

The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting Saturday, but failed to agree on a statement in response to Israel’s ground offensive launched in Gaza.

Libyan Ambassador Giadalla Ettalhi, who circulated a draft resolution on the crisis at a Security Council meeting last week, said a proposal, which “strongly condemns Israeli military action” and calls on the Jewish state to immediately cease “military attacks against the civilian population,” had wide support among Council members.

However, Ettalhi said the United States was to blame for blocking a consensus.

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Just days after the U.S. military formally handed authority of Baghdad’s “Green Zone” over to the Iraqis, the new American Embassy opened in Baghdad.

The new U.S. Embassy covers 104 acres and is the largest in the world, housing 1,200 U.S. diplomats, soldiers, and government staff from 14 federal agencies, according to a U.S. State Department news release.

The original price tag on the 27-building complex was $592 million, but a congressional report from 2007 — citing State Department documents — indicated the cost could end up $144 million higher.

“Embassy Baghdad” will dwarf new U.S. embassies elsewhere, projects that typically cover 10 acres. The embassy’s 104 acres is six times larger than the United Nations compound in New York, and two-thirds the acreage of Washington’s National Mall.

“The presence of a massive U.S. embassy — by far the largest in the world — co-located in the Green Zone with the Iraqi government is seen by Iraqis as an indication of who actually exercises power in their country,” the International Crisis Group, a European-based research group, said in one of its periodic reports on Iraq.

UK Daily Mail - Monday, Jan 5, 2009

Fizzy drinks sold by Coca-Cola in Britain have been found to contain pesticides at up to 300 times the level allowed in tap or bottled water.

A worldwide study found pesticide levels in orange and lemon drinks sold under the Fanta brand, which is popular with children, were at their highest in the UK.

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