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III. Conference services
The Department
of General Assembly Affairs and Conference Services is responsible for
providing meetings services, including interpretation, the provision of
meeting records and the editing, translation, reproduction and distribution
of documents. General
inquiries regarding meetings services may be made to the Planning and
Meetings Servicing Section (room S-1537, ext. 3.6540); inquiries regarding
documents may be made to Documents Control (room S-1552, ext. 3.6579). Programme
of meetings The Planning
and Meetings Servicing Section prepares daily a programme of meetings
for the following day. The programme is printed in the Journal, giving
the conference rooms and other relevant information concerning the meetings.
Queries regarding the schedule of meetings may be addressed to the Meetings
Servicing Unit (ext. 3.7348). Duration
of meetings Normally, morning meetings are scheduled from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and afternoon meetings from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
Meetings
of regional and other major groupings of Member States and other informal
meetings can be accommodated only if and when services originally earmarked
for meetings of charter or mandated bodies are released. The delegation of Haiti has been chosen by lot to occupy the first seat in the General Assembly Hall during the fifty-sixth session of the General Assembly. The delegation of Haiti will, therefore, be seated in the front row at the extreme left (the Secretary-General's side of the podium). Delegations of the other Member States will follow in the English alphabetical order of names, in accordance with established practice. The same seating arrangement applies to meetings of the Main Committees.
Members
of delegations are reminded not to take photographs in the General Assembly
Hall and to refrain from accepting cellular phone calls at their delegation
tables. The Journal
of the United Nations is issued daily on working days in English and
French. During the General Assembly it is issued in the six official languages:
Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The Journal, which
is available on the UN web site, contains: (a) A
programme of meetings; Statements
made in any of the six official languages of the General Assembly are
interpreted into the other official languages. Any representative may
also, in keeping with rule 53 of the rules of procedure of the General
Assembly, make a statement in a language other than the official languages.
In such cases, the delegation in question must provide either an interpreter
or a written text of the statement in one of the official languages. On
the basis of this interpretation or written text, which is accepted by
the Secretariat as representing the official text of the statement, it
will be interpreted into the other official languages by United Nations
interpreters. However, the delegation concerned should make available
to the United Nations interpreter someone who knows the language in which
the statement is to be delivered and the official language into which
it has been translated, to guide the interpreter throughout the translated
text and to ensure synchronization between the speaker and the interpreter. Written
translations of statements delivered in If written
texts are provided in more than one official language, delegations should
indicate clearly which of these is to be accepted as the official text.
When delegations provide a written translation of their statement, they
should specify on the first page of that text whether it should be "read
out verbatim" or "checked against delivery". If delegations
wish their translations to be read out verbatim, any deviations from the
text on the part of the speaker, including omissions and additions, are
unlikely to be reflected in the interpretation. If delegations
believe that the speaker may deviate from the text, they should opt for
"check against delivery" and the interpreters will follow the
speaker and not the translation. In this case, delegations should be aware
that the interpretation heard by the audience will not necessarily correspond
to the translation that they may have distributed to the audience and
the press before or during the delivery of the statement. Representatives
who take the floor in conference rooms should bear in mind that the microphone
before them is inoperative until they have been called upon to speak by
the chairman. In order to ensure the best possible recording and interpretation
of their speeches, they should speak directly into the microphones and
clearly, particularly when giving figures, quotations or highly technical
material, and when reading from a prepared text.
Extraneous noises, like tapping on the microphone to test if it is working,
turning pages or answering cellular phone calls, should also be avoided. While delegations are increasingly given a time frame in which to deliver their statements, they are kindly requested to speak at a normal speed at all times to enable the interpreters to give an accurate and complete rendition of their statements. When statements are delivered as fast as possible in order to comply with the time limit, the quality of the interpretation suffers. Meeting
records are provided for the plenary meetings of principal organs, for
meetings of the Main Committees of the General Assembly and, on a limited
and selective basis, for meetings of certain other bodies. Meeting records
may take the form either of verbatim records (PVs) or of summary records
(SRs). The records are prepared by the Secretariat and are subject to
correction by delegations. However, corrections that add to, or alter
the sense of, a statement as actually delivered cannot be accepted. Verbatim
records cover the proceedings in extenso utilizing interpretations for
languages other than the original. Delegates
are advised that if any portion of a written statement is not actually
read out, it will not appear in the record of that meeting. Summary
records cover the proceedings in a concise, abbreviated form. They are
not intended to include each intervention, or to reproduce statements
textually. The provision
of written records (verbatim or summary) for United Nations bodies is
regulated by a number of decisions of the General Assembly and other principal
organs. In addition,
sound recordings of meetings are made and may be consulted. Corrections to meeting records Corrections
to meeting records should bear the signature of a member of the delegation
concerned and should be sent or delivered to the following offices: for
verbatim records to Chief, Verbatim Reporting Service, room C-178; for
summary records to Chief, Official Records Editing Section, room DC2-0750,
Two United Nations Plaza. Corrections
should be indicated in a memorandum and/or inserted in a copy of the record.
If no memorandum is sent, the front page of the corrected record should
bear the signature and title of an authorized official of the delegation
concerned. Delegations
are requested to make sure that, when the corrections are made by hand,
they are written clearly and that the place in which they are to be inserted
is indicated precisely. A. Verbatim
records Corrections
to verbatim records (PVs) should be limited to errors and omissions in
statements as actually delivered, that is, in the original language. When
a request is submitted for a correction, a check is made against the sound
recording of the relevant speech. B. Summary
records Corrections
to summary records (SRs) should not cover points of style, nor include
lengthy additions that would upset the general balance of the summary
record. Issuance
of corrections Records of United Nations bodies are reissued as corrected only in certain cases. These include records of meetings of the Security Council and plenary meetings of the Economic and Social Council. For other bodies, including the General Assembly and its Main Committees, records are issued only once and approved corrections are reflected in a single corrigendum issued periodically. Only in cases of serious errors or omissions materially affecting the course of the proceedings may a correction be issued immediately. In the case of verbatim records, such exceptional corrections will be resorted to only to revise errors or omissions in the original language version of a statement. Other language versions would be brought in conformity, if necessary, with the corrected text in the original language. A minimum
of 30 copies of the text of speeches to be delivered in plenary meetings
and meetings of the Main Committees should be given in advance to the
conference officer in order to help the Secretariat provide the best possible
service. Failing this, delegations are urged to provide six copies for
interpreters and record-writers before the speaker takes the floor. If
films or other visual materials are used, copies of the scripts should
also be provided. The electronic
version of the text of speeches, preferably as an MS WORD file attachment,
should be sent by email to DPI@un.int
for posting on the UN web site. If delegations
wish to have the text of speeches distributed to delegations, specialized
agencies, observers, interpreters, record-writers and press officers,
300 copies are required. For distribution in the General Assembly Hall,
texts should be delivered to the documents counter on the left side of
the Hall. Distribution
of communications and materials Distribution
of communications and materials in the General Assembly Hall from a delegation
must be cleared in advance with the General Assembly and ECOSOC Affairs
Division (ext. 3.2332 in room S-2925, or ext. 3.7787). The distribution
must be done by the delegation concerned before the meeting starts. Translation
and reproduction of documents Delegations
wishing to submit documents for consideration by a United Nations body
should present them to the Secretary-General or to the secretary of the
body concerned. The staff of Documents Control is not authorized to accept
documents for translation or reproduction directly from delegations. The categories
of documents are as follows: (a) The
"General" series; Distribution
of documents A list
of documents distributed at Headquarters is issued daily. Documentation
distributed daily to delegations in accordance with stated requirements
will be available for pick-up at the delegations' pick-up area located
at the service entrance to the North Lawn complex from 7.30 a.m. to 9.30
a.m. on weekdays. The Delegation
Station on the concourse level of the Secretariat building (room S-B1-060,
ext. 3.7373) is open for secondary requests during working hours on weekdays. A limited
number of copies of documents containing draft proposals for action during
the meetings in progress will be available at the documents counter in
the conference rooms. Special
requests for distribution arrangements can be made by writing to or by
calling the Chief of the Distribution Section (room NL-314, ext. 3.7345
or 3.8062). Arrangements
for automatic distribution should be made by calling ext. 3.7344; secondary
requests should be made in person at S-B1-60 or by calling ext. 3.7373. Only
United Nations documents may be distributed during the meetings. The United
Nations optical disk system (ODS) contains electronic versions in all
official languages of all documents issued in New York, Geneva and Vienna.
It can be accessed free of charge by all permanent missions to the United
Nations and other government offices. Documents stored in the optical
disk system are indexed following the structure of the United Nations
Bibliographic Information System (UNBIS) and can be searched, retrieved
for viewing and printing and downloaded. Information on the optical disk system can be requested from extensions 3.6587 or 3.3861. |
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