• Climate impacts ‘heading into uncharted territory’, warns UN chief
• Somalia: Famine expected 'within weeks' unless world acts
• Rights crisis in Nicaragua is worsening, Human Rights Council hears

• Ukraine’s suffering continues – acting UN rights chief

• 50 million people live in modern slavery

• 6.3 million people in Sri Lanka face food insecurity

• UN chief appeals for "massive" help for flooded Pakistan
• WFP in Pakistan scales up response for flood-hit communities
• Europe records its hottest summer in history, says WMO

The effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on education are severe and will only be fully understood in the years to come, says Costa Rica’s former education minister, Leonardo Garnier.

Mr. Garnier is the Special Advisor to the Transforming Education Summit, which takes place during the opening days of the 77th session of the General Assembly.

On this week’s episode of The Lid Is On, Conor Lennon sits down with the Special Advisor to find out why the UN is putting such a focus on education, amid so many competing global issues and crises, and how lessons can be learned from a previous education crisis, in the 1980s.

Music: Ketsa, Within the Earth

• UNDP: ‘Back-to-back’ crises halt human development progress
• IOM: Migration trend in Africa
• WHO: Meningitis in Africa

• ‘Cascading global crises’ threaten gender equality 

• Pollution and climate change upsurge the risk of ‘climate penalty’ 

• Grave human rights violations in China  

• “Unprecedented numbers” of children face the threat of famine in Somalia, warns UNICEF
• UNHCR rushes aid by air and road following Pakistan floods
• Air pollution knows no borders, so nations must work together: UN Secretary-General

• Myanmar: OHCHR denounces arrest of former UK ambassador
• Food prices dip for fifth month in a row in August – FAO
• Pakistan floods: UNICEF warns many more children may die

Next Wednesday the UN marks the third International Day of Clean Air for Blue Skies. However, the skies are far from clear of air pollution. Only a month ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that practically all the air we breathe is polluted, and that it’s killing around seven million people every year.

Ahead of the International Day, Conor Lennon from UN News spoke to Martina Otto and Nathan Borgford-Parnell from the Climate and Clean Air Coalition, which is hosted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

They discussed the evolving science surrounding the issue, the extent to which air pollution is improving – if at all – and why international collaboration is essential, if the number of annual deaths is to be addressed.

Music: Ketsa, Within the Earth

• Relief chief Martin Griffiths heads to Somalia as famine looms
• Emergency level alert for Afghans in all 34 provinces: IOM
• Yemen: Taiz attacks threatens new suffering, warns UN envoy