The Lid is On

Astronaut Chiaki Mukai broke all the way through Earth’s stratosphere to become the first Japanese woman in space.

For this latest edition of our podcast series, The Lid Is On, she sat down with Dianne Penn at the recent High Level Forum on Space, held in Dubai and organized by the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) together with the United Arab Emirates Space Agency.

Defending the vulnerable from attack is one of the important duties of a UN peacekeeper, but what do you do when you come across a secret safe that may contain weapons, hidden away in a camp designed to protect civilians?

That’s one of the real-life dilemmas facing a UN police patrol in this latest edition of our podcast series from UN News, The Lid Is On.

The UN chief has called the plight of the Rohingyas in Bangladesh a “humanitarian and human rights nightmare”.

So what has it been like trying to ease the suffering on the ground?

For this latest edition of our UN News podcast, The Lid Is On, we’ll take you inside the biggest and fastest exodus of refugees since the Rwanda genocide of 1994.

How do you overcome years of sexual slavery, despite scars which will always remain?

Grizelda Grootboom knows the answer, and in September, she joined the Secretary-General at the UN’s main podium, to tell her story.

She came to urge the General Assembly to adopt a Political Declaration to end the scourge of human trafficking, telling delegates that they had to put victims’ needs first.

South Sudan has known no respite since fighting broke out last July, following the collapse of a peace deal between the government and opposition forces.

People in Africa’s newest nation have witnessed "barbaric" acts of violence carried out by armed groups, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), such as the sexual assault of women and girls and the kidnapping of boys for forced drafting.

The number of South Sudan refugees in Uganda has now passed the one million mark.

A charity runner who does not particularly enjoy running has completed 40 marathons in 40 days to raise awareness about the global goal of providing all people with clean water and sanitation by 2030.

Mina Guli’s quest spanned six continents where she ran along the banks of six of the world’s major rivers, including the Amazon and the Nile.

Sylvia Earle, perhaps the world’s best known woman marine scientist, literally fell head over heels in love with the ocean as a little girl.

“I got knocked over by a wave on the New Jersey Shore when I was three-years-old and the ocean got my attention,” says the veteran oceanographer, who has also earned the sobriquet “Her Deepness.”

An Indian man who cycled across eight countries to be reunited with his sweetheart in Sweden has shared his story at the United Nations.

Pradyumna Kumar Mahanandia, known as PK, made the incredible journey in the mid-1970s.

He and his wife Charlotte Von Schedvin, known as Lotta, have been together ever since.

Their story is told in the book ‘The Amazing Story of the Man Who Cycled from India to Europe for Love’ by Swedish journalist and travel writer, Per J. Andersson.

During the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, “rape was as much a tool of genocide as the machete,” the UN special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, Zainab Bangura has said.

Women from the ethnic minority Tutsi group in the African country were “systematically targeted and raped” during that period, investigations by the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda or ICTR uncovered.