A. As an information officer you have been requested to summarize the following excerpts from a press conference of the President of the General Assembly. The press release should be prepared in journalistic style and should not exceed one page and a half (450 to 500 words).
QUESTION: A main objective of the entire United Nations - the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Secretariat - is to help maintain peace in the world. Yet, the General Assembly did not make a single move on world crisis situation. Is that a deficiency in the General Assembly which you omitted in making your suggestions?
The PRESIDENT: I do not think that it is a deficiency; it is recognition of the realities in the world. Here again, the United Nations, and in particular, the General Assembly, is a clear reflection of those realities which we face in the world today, whether we like them or not. In addition, the General Assembly, as we all know, is not a legislative parliament; it is an assembly of States, and in order to be able to discuss a problem, you require at least one delegation to take the initiative to bring something before the Assembly by moving to put a point on the agenda, by moving a resolution or by moving in a Committee to bring something to the plenary Assembly thereafter.
Those areas to which you have addressed your question are, I am sure, in the minds of many, if not all, but the fact that General Assembly did not address those questions is, in my view - I am repeating myself - first, a recognition of the realities that are out there in the world but, secondly, not a bad mark on this present General Assembly session. The Assembly is free in its decision as to what to discuss, and when on some occasions it wisely decides not to debate, that is its own prerogative.
QUESTION: Following up an earlier question, Mr. President, do you see wishfulness or duplicity in the notion that global negotiations on economics can succeed before the success of global negotiations on political unity
The PRESIDENT: I think the two questions of political and economic solutions for the world's problems are very closely connected, and that is why we talk so often - and I am one of those who is doing that - of the necessity of generating political will in order to come to an agreement on the question of global negotiations, which, in fact, is a question of negotiating on a restructuring of the world economic system or of international economic relation. That is specified in General Assembly resolution 34/138, which is the basis for the attempts to get the global negotiations going.
There is a very close interrelationship between political problems and economic problems, at least to the extent that it requires a determination on the part of all - and I mean both North and South - to come to an agreement on the remaining issues which keep us from launching the global negotiations.
QUESTION: Your use of the expression "political will" and my use of the expression "political unity"; are these the same?
The PRESIDENT: No, they are not the same; but if I might ask you a question, I do not quite understand what you mean by political unity: of whom? Of the United Nations as a body?
QUESTION: Yes, assuming that the United Nations is really not united in any political sense.
The PRESIDENT: In that sense, I hope at least that the leaders in the countries which are interested in global negotiations are ready to go ahead with this very important exercise even without achieving political unity as you describe it. We have been striving for political unity, I think, ever since the time of the League of Nations, and certainly during the lifetime of the United Nations, and I do not dispute the observation that you have made that the United Nations, on occasions, is not entirely united.
QUESTION: Mr. President, which issue did you have in mind when you said that it was possible to avoid unnecessary confrontation and major setbacks in many fields? Do you think that it would be a good idea, for the sake of saving time, to have a debate in the Assembly on Palestine and Middle East instead of having a debate on each one of those questions?
The PRESIDENT: Well, that is a two-pronged question. First, I should like to refer again to points such as those I mentioned earlier, but also the fact that we have had a larger number, compared to previous Assemblies, of resolutions adopted by consensus. Certainly, that was the case especially with the First Committee items.
Now I have forgotten the second half of your question.
QUESTION: The question was, would you be in favour of having one debate on Palestine and the Middle East instead of one on each?
The PRESIDENT: Yes, I should indeed be in favour of grouping items. That was one proposal that the ambassadors made last year, and it was also contained in the Secretary - General's report to last year's session of the General Assembly. It was also put before the General Committee, and it never passed the General Committee. I am speaking of a grouping of items under one heading. To give one example, I think one could very well see grouping all the items in the First Committee that deal with nuclear-free zones or zones of peace all under one heading, instead of each one being addressed separately. That would also go, in my view, for items that relate to the Middle East, in whatever fashion.
QUESTION: We all recognize how efficiently you have handled the Assembly here. You have had a great opportunity to observe the efforts that go into attacking these issues and what comes out as a result.
Recently there has been public criticism of the United Nations. Do you think that criticism is fair?
The PRESIDENT: I do not know to which criticism you are referring, but let me give you a general answer that I hope will satisfy you. An Organization like the United Nations is bound to be criticized. The question here is, is it positive, constructive criticism or is it an attempt to destroy the Organization.Having pointed to that distinction, I would say that any constructive criticism should be welcome. The other kind of criticism should be dealt with, either by responding to it or by pointing to the performance of the United Nations as a whole. Again, I think I mentioned this when I came to you on my first or second day of office. I think it is unfair that public opinion - the media and the parliaments and, sometimes, Governments - when they look at the United Nations as a system, single out the General Assembly and the Security Council, because that is where the action is, that is where the drama is and that is where the story is, and very seldom report on the activities of the specialized forums, which, in my view, are doing an excellent job - most of them, if not all of them.
B. Rewrite the following cuts as a 5-minute radio item to be included in a UN radio news programme.
"HUMAN RIGHTS DAY was observed in New York on Tuesday (10 December) at a meeting of United Nations staff in honour of colleagues who have been detained or in other ways been denied their human rights. Secretary –General Perez de Cuellar reminded the staff it was against the background of the horrors of the Second World War that representatives of the nations of the world had formulated the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The decades since then, he added, had not brought universal recognition of the inherent dignity and inalienable right of the human person.
He noted that, earlier in the day, he had attended an exhibition at United Nations headquarters depicting that most infamous attack against human life and dignity which was called Auschwitz. Mr. Perez de Cuellar told the staff that "in our own house" there had been painful reminders of human rights violations."
"The United Nations Economic and Social Council, ECOSOC, ended its second regular session of 1985 after approving a draft agreement between the United Nations and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation, UNIDO, which was recently converted into a specialized agency. It also recommended that the Assembly do likewise ‘at the earliest opportunity.’ Recognizing the coordinating role and comprehensive responsibilities of the General Assembly and the Economic and Social Council, the agreement lays out avenues of cooperation between the agency and the United Nations, and establishes UNIDO's pre-eminence in the field of upgrading the industrial systems of the developing countries."
"A resolution on help to student refugees in southern Africa expressed appreciation for the contribution of Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Zambia in granting asylum, and asked the High Commissioner and Secretary-General to organize a suitable assistance programme for those refugees.
The social committee has adopted, without a vote, a resolution on the Genocide Convention, urging countries that have not already joined to do so without delay. Another resolution adopted without a vote called for the establishment of a Voluntary Fund for Indigenous Populations - to provide financial help to representatives of indigenous communities to take part in the deliberations of a working group that is devoted to their concerns."
"The Assembly's Economic Committee has adopted draft resolutions on special economic assistance programmes, and an International Volunteer Day, on the report of the Trade and Development Board, on the role of personnel in the development process, on technical cooperation among developing countries, and on coordination within the United Nations system. On special programmes of economic assistance, the draft adopted would have the Assembly ask the Secretary -General report to it in 1986 on ways and means of enhancing efficiency in the implementation of decisions taken by intergovernmental bodies.”
“By another draft, the Assembly would invite Governments to observe the fifth of December as an International Volunteer Day every year, and would urge them to stress the importance of volunteer service. On technical cooperation among developing countries, the Assembly would request the organisations in the United Nations system to take action to ensure the implementation of the decisions of the High- Level Committee on the Review of Technical Cooperation among Developing Countries."
C. An observer from a non-governmental organization has written to the director of the United Nations information centre where you serve requesting that the centre issue a press statement on a major meeting organized by the nongovernmental organization in which local government officials participated. The topics covered in the meetingi ncluded human rights, the rights of the disabled, water pollution in the region and the successes of the nongovernmental organization in dealing with refugees.
Draft a letter for the director's signature in response to this request.
Suggested reading includes basic textbooks and periodicals in the field of public information covering the following topics:
Examination Sample: General Paper (P2)