PALESTINE STATE TALKS. Later today and Tuesday, diplomats will meet at UN headquarters in New York to try to advance a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict between Israel and Palestine.

The gathering, which the Trump administration will skip and has asked other countries to boycott, comes as tensions rise between Washington and the global organisation. Meanwhile, Israel’s allies have expressed belated criticism of its operations in Gaza, where UN aid officials say life-sustaining supplies are running out.

France weighs in. Late last week, President Emmanuel Macron said that France, which co-chairs this week’s meeting with Saudi Arabia, will officially recognise Palestine as a state in September at the UN General Assembly. To date, 147 of the UN’s 193 member states have formally recognised the state of Palestine.

Third time lucky? An earlier conference on Palestinian statehood scheduled in June had been postponed, while separate talks in March over the application of the Geneva Conventions to the occupied Palestinian territories were also cancelled at the last minute.

MPs HUDDLE. Representatives from the US will also be absent at a world conference of parliamentarians in Geneva this week. Over 110 countries will however send congressional delegations to the gathering dubbed “A world in turmoil: Parliamentary cooperation and multilateralism for peace, justice and prosperity for all.”

Russia, which is sending one of the larger delegations to the conference, will be sitting alongside representatives of Ukraine’s legislature, while Israeli and Palestinian MPs will also be present.

Before discussions over issues such as cooperation on SDGs, climate change leadership and digital governance begin tomorrow, women speakers of parliament will meet today amid the slowest rate of gains for female representation in parliaments since 2017.

– By Paula Dupraz-Dobias