General Assembly opens 39th session, begins work on 143-item agenda.

It was "paradoxical", he said, that "while contemporary realities have strengthened the need for the use of multilateral means for dealing with our problems ... there is an increasing questioning of the rules, instruments and modalities of multilateral co-operation". Without the "safety net" which multilateral organizations provided, he concluded, "the world would certainly be a much more dangerous and disorderly place".

In his press conference on 17 Septembe, Mr. Petez de Cuellar said a main problem of the Organization was that it was "in some way not being duly utilized for the peaceful solution of international problems. Of course, that is not the fault of the United Nations; it is the fault of Member countries which do not want, or do not know how, to use the instrument they themselves have created".

The first days of the thirty-ninth session offered some optimistic signs--including the Secretary-General's rounds of meetings with world leaders, the talks in New York City between United States President Ronald Reagan and Soviet Foreign minister Andrei Gromyko, and the 8 October offer of El Salvador President Jose Napoleon Duarte to hold talks with guerrilla leaders in his country.

Mr. Perez de Cuelar, at his news conference, said it was "thanks to the existence of the United Nations" that the United States-Soviet talks in New York were made possible, and that dialogue in itself should help lessen tensions. And on 19 October, e said that even during the present period of severe strains, recent developments had again shown the importance of the United Nations "as the only place where leaders or representatives of nations which are at odds with one another can come together and formulate positions which can lead to serious negotiations".

Jorge Illueca of Panama, outgoing President of the thirty-eighth Assembly, told the world body on 18 September that international cooperation through the United Nations system "offers the best hope of coping with problems which transcend national boundaries".

"A world without the Untited Nations would be a much more dangerous place in which to live", said Paul J.F. Lusaka of Zambia, in a statement following his election as President of the 1984 Assembly. The United Nations, he said, "still represents mankind's most imaginative structure for using co-operative methods to tackle man's ancient enemies, namely, war, disease, poverty and the denial of basic human rights nd freedoms".

New Member: As the General Assembly by acclamation received its 159th Member--Brunei Darussalam--Mr. Lusaka said: "We have been able to almost attain universality of membership; we have been able to make this assembly truly a parliament of nations and a forum for humanity."

The Asian sultanate, neighbouring Malaysia and Indonesia, was admitted to membership on 21 September. Its yellow flag with two digonal stripes of black and white and its coat of arms in red was raised that day for th first time in front of Headquarters. The oil-producing country, formerly a British protectorate, became independent on 1 January 1984.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah Mu'izzaddin Waddaulah, Head of State and Prime Minister of the new Member--the name of which means "Brunei, Abode of Peace"--presented a $1 million check to the United Nations Children's Fund's Executive Director James Grant, following the flag-raising ceremony, for a special fund for countries with high infant mortality rates.

Agenda

A number of political items of continuing concern were to be considered again this year in the plenary, including the situations in the Middle East, Iran and Iraq, Cyprus, Central America, southern Africa (Namibia and apartheid), Afghanistan and Kampuchea. Particular atention would be devoted to the emergency food needs and other problems of Africa.

Many of these topics were central to the Assembly's general debate, which spanned a three-week period from 24 September through 11 October. Participating this year in the traditional discussion, which sets the tone for the work of the Assembly, were 150 speakers, including 16 Heads of State and...