NEW ORLEANS, United States, May 29 (IPS) - Danielle Nierenberg is Founder and President of Food Tank. Emily Payne is a food and agriculture writer based in New YorkMany factors contribute to the cost of a tomato. For example, what inputs were used (water, soil, fertilizer, pesticides, as well as machinery and/or labor) to grow it? What kind of energy and materials were used to process and package it? Or how much did transportation cost to get it to the shelf?

UNITED NATIONS, May 29 (IPS) - Kacie Candela, PassBlue*From the start, it was a closely watched contest pitting Germany, Belgium and Israel against one another for their regional bloc's two seats in the next term on the United Nations Security Council. Israel has never held a seat on the Council, and as it celebrates its 70-year membership in the UN in 2018, the country was aiming high for the June 8 election.

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 29 (IPS) - Amb. Macharia Kamau is the Principal Secretary for Foreign Affairs of Kenya. Siddharth Chatterjee is the UN Resident Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative in Kenya. In April 2018, Commonwealth leaders met in a retreat at a royal residence in the English county of Berkshire and agreed on strategies to deepen trade in their 53-member organisation, improve security, tackle climate change, and work togetherfor the betterment of the lives of the people of the Commonwealth.

BULAWAYO, May 29 (IPS) - Zimbabwe goes to the polls in July for the first general election since the departure of Robert Mugabe, and the jockeying over who will represent the country's major political parties is in full throttle.

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, May 28 (IPS) - The United Nations is continuing to fight a relentless battle to eradicate extreme hunger – particularly in the world's poorest nations—by 2030.

NAIROBI, Kenya, May 28 (IPS) - Honourable Mr. Moody Awori, is the former Vice President of the Republic of Kenya. Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya.Africa is rising. But at the same time, Africa is the continent with the largest number of people, (390 million) living in extreme poverty.

NEW DELHI, May 28 (IPS) - A disquieting finding of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2017, Building resilience for peace and food security, or (SFSN2017), Rome,is that, in 2016, the number of chronically undernourished people in the world increased to 815 million, up from777 million in 2015 although still lower than about 900 million in 2000.Similarly,while the prevalence of undernourishment rose to 11 percent in 2016, this is still well below the level attained a decade ago.Whether this recent rise in hunger and food-insecurity levels signals the beginning of an upward trend, or whether it reflects an acute transient situation calls for a close scrutiny.

SANTIAGO, May 27 (IPS) - Chile has become a model country for its advances in non-conventional energy, and is now debating whether citizens who individually or as a group generate electricity can profit from the sale of the surplus from their self-consumption - a factor that will be decisive when it comes to encouraging their contribution to the energy supply.

BUSAN, May 26 (IPS) - The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) presented the African model of a National Financing Vehicle in which the governments of Rwanda and Ethiopia have successfully promoted green growth and climate resilience, at an event May 25 on the sidelines of the annual meetings of the Board of Governors of the African Development Bank (AfDB) in Busan, South Korea.

SAN FRANCISCO, May 25 (IPS) - Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and coordinator of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco. The United States Secretary of State Mike Pompeo's speech this past Monday targeting Iran may have created a new benchmark for hypocritical, arrogant, and entitled demands by the United States on foreign governments.