Clean air is key to everyone achieving their potential, not just athletes, reigning marathon world record-holder Paula Radcliffe said on Wednesday.  In an interview with UN News, the track and field legend spoke about how air pollution made her ill while training for major races, and what she is doing as a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) Clean Air Advocate and Ambassador, for the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF).

This week’s episode of our podcast series, The Lid Is On, comes to you on World Cities Day, which was launched in 2014 to emphasize the world’s urban challenges.

We’ll find out what the UN is doing to influence the way cities grow and develop, and we’ll discover how community gardens are an effective, and low-cost way to build stronger neighbourhoods.

Have you ever gotten to experience a carefully-selected whiff of toxic air? That’s what the UN has in store for you in Geneva, in a new art exhibit, of interconnected pods, each containing a chemical cocktail simulating air pollution levels in big cities like Sao Paolo and New Delhi.  It’s called “Pollution Pods”, and, the creator, British artist Michael Pinsky, took UN News’s Daniel Johnson, on a swift sensory tour.

The international community must not tolerate any more atrocities in Myanmar, and the Government should be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC) to answer for serious rights violations, the UN expert tasked with monitoring human rights in the country, Yanghee Lee, has told UN News.

In an interview on the occasion of her annual briefing to the Security Council, Ms. Lee told UN News’ Li Zhang that the democratic space in the country is shrinking.

Disarmament is too important to be left to the experts. That’s the view of Renata Dwan, Director of the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), who says young people and civil society have a vital role to play in arms control, at this turbulent time in world history. For our latest Lid Is On podcast Ms. Dwan sat down with UN News’s Paulina Greer.

The international community must put human rights ahead of policy changes, when it comes to negotiations with North Korea, which is officially known as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). That’s the advice of the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights for the nation, Tomas Quintana, who says  shared findings of his latest report with Liling Huang of UN News's Chinese Unit. 

Wednesday marked the 73rd birthday of the UN’s founding document, known as the UN Charter.  The anniversary is celebrated as “United Nations Day”, and every year, in the name of peace and our common humanity, a concert takes place in the UN’s General Assembly’s hall, in New York.  Yasmina Guerda from UN News was there and met some of the performers taking part.

A chief reason for the high level of “peace, stability and prosperity” enjoyed by many countries across the world is the ongoing work of the International Court of Justice (ICJ).  That’s the view of Judge Abdulqawi Ahmed Yusuf, of Somalia, President of the ICJ.  Judge Yusuf briefed the Security Council on Wednesday on the work of the Court over the past year, he spoke with Mustafa Al Gamal of our UN News Arabic service.

Too many states are using legitimate public concerns about terrorism, as an excuse to target individuals or communities they don’t like. That’s the view of Ahmed Shaheed, UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, who was at UN Headquarters this week to deliver a report to the UN General Assembly. He sat down to talk to UN News’s Siwen Qian.

Anti-immigrant rhetoric around the world is increasingly “worrying,” a UN Special Rapporteur on human rights defenders said on Tuesday, and when some governments begin labelling migrants “terrorists”, advocates for their rights “need to find ways to protect them.” UN expert Michel Forst spoke with Elena Vapnitchnaia of UN News’s Russian Unit, about how defamation of immigrants and their defenders impacts local social climates.