The Lid is On

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.

Member States estimate that there could up to 30,000 ISIL fighters in Iraq and Syria. A significant proportion of them are foreigners, and the majority of the European nationals return home.

Throughout his term as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein has never been afraid to speak up for the vulnerable and condemn abuse.

 “Never give up”. Is the motto of Ben Ferencz, the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg post-war US Military Tribunals, and at 99 years of age, he is still a tireless, and fearless, fighter for human rights and justice.

After the war, Ferencz was drafted into the Trials at a time when the very concept of war crimes was barely understood. Just 27 at the time, he found himself prosecuting former SS officers responsible for the deaths of thousands of men, women and children.

Young women are increasingly being groomed as reluctant suicide bombers in the impoverished Lake Chad region of central Africa.

The extremist group Boko Haram which originated in the north-eastern Nigerian city of Maiduguri is now causing terror in neighbouring countries including Chad.

In this special The Lid Is On podcast from UN News, Daniel Dickinson travelled to Chad to listen to the experience of one teenage girl who survived after being sent by Boko Haram to blow herself up at a busy weekly market.

A veteran de-miner who has witnessed some of the worst damage explosives can inflict on civilians, says he has never seen anything like the situation in Mosul, the last stronghold of the extremist group ISIL in Iraq, which was finally liberated just over a year ago.

Paul Heslop of the UN Mine Action Service (UNMAS) said that, although teams have cleared nearly 30,000 grenades, artillery shells, aircraft bombs, and other deadly devices, “we’re just starting to scratch the surface”.

It’s time for the United Nations to play a bigger role in disarmament, according to UN chief António Guterres, calling for concrete, practical actions to promote peaceful conflict resolution. Among those actions is to maximize the benefits of the technological revolution.

Known as “frontier technology”, the field of scientific and technological innovation could produce new tools to maintain peace and security around the world.

Daniel Johnson discusses the various ways that the UN is looking to incorporate such technology in its disarmament agenda.

The UN Special Envoy for Global Education is on a mission to convince wealthy donors that investing in good teachers and classrooms is an investment in our collective future.

For this edition of our UN News podcast, the Lid Is On, we invited former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown to sit down with three young ambassadors from Kenya, Nepal and Guinea, for a lively conversation about the real difference that education dollars can make to peace, security, and sustainable growth across the world.

Putting pain eloquently on paper is just one of the gifts that has made Belgian-born Israeli cartoonist Michel Kichka a celebrated artist, but perhaps his most “overwhelming” and profound journey began when he put pen to paper and started work on a graphic novel examining the impact of his own father’s trauma surviving the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.

Every six seconds, somebody is killed or seriously injured on the road, adding up to 1.25 million deaths each year.

Digital cash vouchers powered by the revolutionary technology behind the Bitcoin cryptocurrency are helping the UN ensure that food aid is getting to where it’s needed most.

For our latest Lid Is On podcast, Dianne Penn talks to the World Food Programme’s (WFP) innovation chief, Robert Opp, about the new, cost-effective and secure technology that’s making a difference to the lives of thousands of refugees.

Music credit: Within the Earth, by Ketsa