The outgoing head of the UN Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) urged leaders to end their stalemate and bring the country back on the path to peace and stability, in an exclusive interview with UN News.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres is appalled by the escalation of Israeli military activity in and around Rafah in southern Gaza, his spokesperson said in a statement on Tuesday.

Large parts of the city of Rafah are now a “ghost town”, with UN humanitarians reporting on Tuesday that some 450,000 Gazans have been forcibly displaced from the southernmost city by Israeli evacuation orders in the last week.

Two women involved in the day-to-day operations in Haiti of the UN’s humanitarian air service, known as UNHAS, say they have to manage “unknowns” and “dangers and stress” in order to keep aircraft flying.

NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts, May 14 (IPS) - Food systems—how we grow, transport, prepare, and dispose of the food we eat—are responsible for roughly one-third of all global greenhouse gas emissions. And those gases are changing the climate, which in turn is disrupting the food supply. It would seem to be a classic vicious circle.

NAIROBI, May 13 (IPS) - The triple planetary crises of climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and waste are escalating. At the current pace, the world is on track to lose one quarter of all plant and animal species by 2030, with one species already dying out every 10 minutes. One million species face extinction. Human activity has already altered three-quarters of the land on Earth and two-thirds of the ocean.

PRETORIA, South Africa, May 13 (IPS) - South Africa will play an important international role in 2025 as president of the G20. The G20 is a group of 19 countries as well as the African Union and the European Union. Between them they represent 85% of global economy, 75% of world trade and 67% of global population. The G20 defines itself as the premier multilateral forum for international economic cooperation.

UNITED NATIONS, May 13 (IPS) - The United States and its closest political and military ally, Israel, once again found themselves isolated last week when 143 of the UN’s 193 member states approved a resolution enhancing the role of Palestine providing it with new diplomatic privileges.

And the US, meanwhile, has implicitly threatened to cut off funding -- if and when the UN provides legitimacy to Palestine. But that legitimacy is not likely to be achieved as long the US continues to exercise its veto to deny Palestine the status of a full-fledged UN member state.

A senior official with the UN children’s agency, UNICEF, appealed on Monday for urgent action to support diplomatic and long-term solutions to address the conflict in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

A new report jointly issued by the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reveals a significant increase in the issuance of study, work, family reunification and sponsorship permits to refugees by OECD countries and Brazil.