Four countries have completely destroyed their stockpiles of cluster munitions since 2017, according to a report by a leading coalition seeking a global ban on the weapons in line with the international convention governing their use. However, Mary Wareham, one of the editors of Cluster Munition Monitor 2018, tells UN News that these weapons are still claiming victims.

For the  International Day Against Nuclear Tests UN News’s Elena Vapnitchnaia spoke to Ambassador Kairat Umarov, Permanent Representative of Kazakhstan to the UN, on the impact of over 450 nuclear tests conducted in his country and Kazakhstan’s efforts to work with the wider international community on enhancing public awareness and education about the effects of nuclear weapon test explosions. 

Parties to the conflict in Yemen may be guilty of war crimes, and a confidential list of the perpetrators has been compiled.  These are just some of the results that an independent fact-finding mission on Yemen announced on Tuesday in Geneva, following the publishing of the panel’s report.  Daniel Johnson from UN News spoke to Charles Garraway from the Group of Eminent Experts on Yemen.

In a report released in July, the UN Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate for the Security Council (CTED), warned of a growing threat: the return of foreign terrorist fighters, or FTFs. For the latest episode of our Lid is On podcast, we asked David Wells, political analysis and research Unit coordinator for CTED, to explain the challenges and potential solutions to the problem.

Veteran human rights investigator Radhika Coomaraswamy, member of the Independent International Fact-finding Mission on Myanmar, said she was shocked by the horrific sexual violence perpetrated against Myanmar’s ethnic Rohingya. She spoke to UN News following the release of the Mission’s report.

The discovery of a new confirmed case of Ebola virus in a town surrounded by armed insurgents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has highlighted the difficulty of protecting people from infection there,  Dr. Peter Salama, Deputy Director-General of Emergency Preparedness and Response at the World Health Organization (WHO), tells UN News.

Kofi Annan’s passing has deprived us of one of the world’s “last big moral voices”, the UN’s top official in Geneva and friend of nearly 40 years, Michael Møller, said on Saturday.

As more people are moving to cities, traditional practices are weakening among the Karen, a society of indigenous farmers in northern Thailand. In New York to speak at a commemoration for Indigenous Peoples Day, Prasert Trakansuphakon, a Sgaw Karen, described some of the traditional Karen practices to Liz Scaffidi.

UNISPACE+50, the fourth conference of the United Nations on the exploration and peaceful uses of outer space, was held in Geneva from the 18th to the 21st of June.  The need for more women and girls to take part in STEM studies - Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics - was foremost on the minds of many participants, as Fatima E Mendez has been finding out, in our latest UN Gender Focus podcast, from UN News.

UNRWA, the UN Agency for Palestine Refugees, says it will be able to open the schools it operates for the coming academic term.  However, with the Agency still struggling to cope with the US decision to cut funding by $300 million, the prospect beyond September are still very uncertain.  UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness spoke with UN News.