Yuriko was just a 12 year-old growing up in Hiroshima, when the devastating mushroom cloud enveloped the city in the morning of 6 August 1945. Kathleen Burkinshaw’s novel The Last Cherry Blossom, tells Yuriko’s extraordinary survival story, a journey inspired by the life of the author’s mother, laying bare the importance of nuclear disarmament.

For this edition of our podcast show, The Lid is On, Ana Carmo spoke to Ms. Burkinshaw when she came to talk about the book, at the UN Bookshop in New York last year.

A group of survivors devastated by terrorism in the Lake Chad region of Africa, are taking small steps towards building new lives and livelihoods. In Cameroon alone, there are some 250,000 internally-displaced and around 100,000 refugees, forced to flee their homes due to a brutal insurgency which was originally led by Boko Haram.

In this special edition of our Lid is On Podcast, Daniel Dickinson reports from Maroua in the Far North region of the country.

In this exclusive UN News interview, Melissa Fleming, new head of Global Communications here at the UN, talks to António Guterres for our Lid Is On podcast, about the power of effective international cooperation, on the road to 2030.

Who wants the death of the UN?

This provocative question is the title – translated into English from Qui veut la mort de l’ONU?  in French – of a new book by Romuald Sciora and Anne-Cécile Robert, two French journalists and experts in international affairs.

In it, they argue that the United Nations is often unfairly held responsible for a lot of the ailments of the world: war, famine, health and environmental crises…

For this new edition of The Lid Is On podcast, Yasmina Guerda spoke to them while they were visiting UN Headquarters in New York, about what, in their view, needs to happen to safeguard the Organization’s future.

Music credit: Massive Attack, by Podington Bear.