#1. “The UN appointed Saudi Arabia to chair the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC).” Saudi Arabia, a country that treats women, homosexuals, religious minorities, dissidents, etc horrifically — including state-sanctioned public executions. Their human rights record is disgusting, but don’t worry; the UN went ahead and replaced them with … Egypt, a country that isn’t doing much better in that regard.

#2. “UN peacekeepers sexually abused children in the Central African Republic (CAR).” The sexual abuse of children, rape, and quid pro quo sexual abuse of the impoverished in the CAR was uncovered in May 2014 and led to numerous cases being exposed. The Children Rights International Network has a timeline of the atrocities.

#3. “The UN did little to stop mass genocide and ethnic cleansing in Rwanda, Bosnia, Cambodia, and East Timor.” The UN, a group that has little power to enforce anything, has been in place as a massive amount of blood has been shed around the world in genocides that have needed others to come in and do something while the UN sat powerless.

#4. “The UN failed to hold the Soviet Union accountable.” After the UN’s human rights charter in 1948, the Soviet Union went on to do horrific things, much of it under the brutal dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. As the Cold War raged on for years, the impotent UN said and did next to nothing.

#5. “UN peacekeepers in South Sudan ‘ignored rape and assault of aid workers.’” As aid workers were assaulted in South Sudan, the UN peacekeepers sat by and did nothing, despite being close enough to help the numerous pleas for rescue — something the UN had reportedly done before when local women were raped by soldiers with the UN’s main camp right outside where the assaults occurred.

#6. “The UN turned a blind eye to the latest genocide in Syria.” Obama’s “red line in the sand,” which was quickly blown away along with China and Russia’s seats on the UNSC along with veto power, has essentially given Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian buddies carte blanche in Syria.

#7. “The UN’s anti-Israel obsession has officially become an excuse for anti-Semitism.”The UN has time and time again sided with Israel’s enemies, which has made it clear that the international body, and in many cases those that support their anti-Israel resolutions, operates based on anti-Semitism. Why in the world is the US still a part of this deplorable institution? That is the question that needs to be asked and more importantly, something needs to be done about it.

But these days, as Palestinians see prospects for the so-called two-state solution disintegrating, a growing number are mulling over a provocative alternative: a single binational state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.

The notion is the equivalent of a demographic Trojan horse, forcing Israel either to give Arab residents full voting rights — and jeopardize the Jewish identity upon which Israel was created in 1948 — or risk becoming an apartheid state under permanent sanction by the rest of the world.

US Secretary of State John F. Kerry warned of the risk Wednesday in what he described as a “fundamental reality” for the two sides to consider: “If the choice is one state, Israel can either be Jewish or democratic — it cannot be both — and it won’t ever really be at peace.”

Wilf, a native Jerusalemite, pointed to two sections of the resolution that she said were key to legitimizing Israel’s claims to West Jerusalem. For one, the text determines that Israeli settlement in territory captured in 1967, including East Jerusalem, “has no legal validity.” The resolution further calls on all states to “distinguish, in their relevant dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the territories occupied since 1967.”

Most Israeli politicians and pundits view those two sentences as the resolution’s most troubling, as they appear to invite boycotts of goods and people from the settlements. But Wilf, who holds a PhD in political science from the University of Cambridge, chose to focus on the other side of the coin.

By drawing a clear distinction between Israel proper and the settlements, and declaring the settlements illegal, the Security Council “is essentially clarifying the absolute legality of the territory of Israel within the 1949 ceasefire lines, including west Jerusalem,” she noted. “This resolution could provide a Trump administration the international legal support for their policy of moving the US Embassy to west Jerusalem.”

One would wonder why wheat is sprayed with glyphosate, even though wheat is not a GMO crop. This was the exact question asked by Dr Stephanie Seneff as she researched the connection between the rise in celiac disease and the use of glyphosate.

Through her research, Dr Seneff found that wheat farmers are using glyphosate on their crop just before wheat harvest for two reasons. First, they are desiccating non-organic wheat crops so they kill off the wheat after harvest so there is less to clear. Second, when you expose wheat to a toxic chemical such as glyphosate, it releases more seed as it dies. As a result, farmers get higher yield.

As a result, glyphosate can be found in one of the most-common ingredients of the modern western diet – wheat. Does this practice of desiccating the wheat crop mean the decimation of the gut? Dr Seneff believes so.

The passage of the resolution has sparked an angry rhetorical and diplomatic campaign by the Israeli government against the 14 countries that supported it and the US for abstaining.  While most of Israel’s public anger since Friday’s vote has been aimed at the Obama administration, Israeli officials have begun venting in private at the British government.     

“The UK and Israel disagree on settlements but this resolution was harmful to both Israel and the cause of peace in ways that have nothing to do with settlements,” an official said. “We’re disappointed that a friend and ally such as the UK would take a leading role in formulating and promoting this hostile resolution.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, reportedly decided not to meet with Theresa May at next month’s Davos summit in response to Britain’s vote for the resolution and the UK ambassador in Tel Aviv was summoned on Christmas Day for a dressing down. 

While Israel feels comfortable escalating the war of words with the outgoing Obama administration it is more wary of a confrontation with Mrs May, who is a strong supporter of Israel and is likely to be in power for years to come. But after discovering Britain’s alleged role in steering the resolution, which was first reported by Haaretz, it is possible that Israel will seek further diplomatic retaliation.  

"I am convinced that the United States can still shape the future of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before a change in presidents, but time is very short, " Carter wrote. "The simple but vital step this administration must take before its term expires on January 20 is to grant American diplomatic recognition to the state of Palestine."

The former President also called for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution "laying out the parameters for resolving the conflict." However, President-elect Donald Trump's position has thrilled many supporters of Israel, as well as Israel's political right wing. As a candidate, Trump promised to recognize Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel and renegotiate the Iran nuclear deal, which has been criticized by Israel's leaders.

In Israel, there is a tremendous amount of concern that whatever is agreed upon at this conference will immediately be used as the basis for a UN Security Council resolution that would permanently divide the land of Israel and create a Palestinian state.  But things would have to move very rapidly in order for that to happen, because Barack Obama’s time in the White House comes to an end on January 20th, and Donald Trump has already made it exceedingly clear that he would never support such a resolution.

The UN Security Council resolution that was passed on Friday was one of the most significant events that we have witnessed in decades.  Resolution 2334 made all Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem illegal, it set the 1967 ceasefire lines as the border between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and it granted every single inch of East Jerusalem to the Palestinians.  But it stopped short of giving official UN Security Council recognition to a Palestinian state, and that is why this conference on January 15th is so important.

On Wednesday, US Secretary of State John Kerry will lay out a plan which many believe will serve as the blueprint for the upcoming conference in Paris.  This is something that I discussed yesterday.  Apparently Kerry has been working on this for quite some time, and according to the Times of Israel, Jewish officials are fearful that he may propose something drastic…

The volcano, situated just 40 miles from Peru’s second most populous city Arequipa in the Andes, returned to life at 8.24am on Monday just over a week after it began activity on December 16. Local authorities have warned the local inhabitants they are likely to be affected by the ash from the 20,000-ft (6,000m) volcano whose name translates at ‘tongue of fire’ in the local dialect of Quechua.

Sabancaya sits on top of the South America tectonic plate which when it clashes with the neighbouring Nazca plate, spews magma to the surface. The stratovolcano had been dormant for around 200 years until it began erupting in the 1980s. Sabancaya is covered with several glaciers and located in the saddle between the older volcanoes Ampato and Hualca Hualca.

Worryingly, Peru is suffering from two active volcanoes at the same time, the first time this has occurred in recorded history. The Ubinas volcano is only 60 miles away and is currently active as well, spewing an ash cloud into the atmosphere around two miles high. The stratovolcano is Peru’s most active volcano and was last active in April 2014. It had been dormant for 40 years before starting activity in 2006. Authorities have began a mass evacuation of the surrounding area of the volcano.