UN team proposes unity government

Talks are the only hope of putting end to fighting, Western officials say

United Nations negotiators have handed Libya's warring factions a draft proposal for forming a unity government in an attempt to end a conflict that threatens to push the North African country into becoming a failed state.

Western officials say the UN talks are the only hope of halting fighting between two rival governments and their armed forces that has battered the OPEC country since the 2011 uprising that ended Muammar Gadhafi's one-man rule.