MEXICO CITY, Mar 14 (IPS) - Mexico has taken important steps to protect native corn, even standing up to its largest trading partner, the United States, to do so. But the lack of a comprehensive legal framework in its policy towards genetically modified crops allows authorizations for other transgenic crops.

NEW YORK, Mar 14 (IPS) - In recent weeks, the Biden administration has found itself facing a serious dilemma as to how to balance its commitment to Israel’s national security along with the humanitarian crisis facing the Palestinians in Gaza.

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 14 (IPS) - The Biden administration’s sheer hypocrisy is reflected in its policy of dropping food packages into a devastated Gaza, while at the same time, it continues to arm Israel with missiles and heavy artillery to kill Palestinian civilians suffering hunger and starvation.

As US Congressman Ro Khanna (Democrat of California) said last week: "You can't have a policy of giving aid (to Palestinians) and giving Israel the weapons to bomb the food trucks at the same time"

The UN Secretary-General on Thursday called for “putting people first” by ending the stigma and discrimination around those who use drugs and the expansion of prevention and treatment programmes.

The UN Special Envoy for Yemen on Thursday emphasized the urgent need for a nationwide ceasefire and measures to improve living conditions in the war-ravaged country.

Out-of-control gang violence has created a humanitarian crisis in Haiti that the UN aims to help alleviate with the creation of an airbridge with the neighbouring Dominican Republic.

Desperately needed aid operations in Gaza must be protected from attack, the UN’s top aid official has warned, amid reports on Thursday that Palestinians were killed and injured while waiting for supplies in Gaza City.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Mar 13 (IPS) - Brazil is counting on biofuels to assert itself as an energy powerhouse in the near future, as a decisive supplier of low-carbon jet fuel, a requirement of the climate crisis.

WASHINGTON DC, Mar 13 (IPS) - A group of senators said Tuesday that under U.S. law, the Biden administratio must cut off American military assistance to Israel unless the Netanyahu government immediately stops impeding aid deliveries to the Gaza Strip, where children are dying of starvation after months of incessant Israeli bombing and attacks on humanitarian convoys.

Mar 13 (IPS) - One of the key efforts under the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals is to provide poor households with access to clean cooking technologies to replace, in particular, the burning of solid biomass (e.g., fuelwood and charcoal) in traditional open stoves that kills millions of women and children.