Our guide, from RPA, started the tour in a big hall decorated with 193 flags. There he told us about the main responsibilities of UN (human rights protection, environmental protection, striving for peace) and about the countries that belong to the UN (192 + Vatican that expresses its opinion only about the issue of nuclear power). Then we went through a X-ray check in, as in the airport, and finally we entered the extraterritorial zone. Unfortunately, we were shown only few rooms. The first one was the conference hall ,where we were told how the UN strives for equity in every respect, even when it comes to the seats order. So, normally it’s an alphabetic order, but the representatives of the particular country take one seat further to the right at the beginning of new session. Otherwise, Afghanistan would be always seated as the first one and Zimbabwe would be always at the end...
The hall is equipped in 8 cabins for simultaneous interpreters. The languages appear in alphabetic order: Arabian, Chinese, English, German, Russian, Spanish. Last two cabins are reserved for representatives who wish to have their own interpreter of their language. But they use this possibility very rarely.
When the big story finished we began quite a long photo session. Everyone wanted to have a picture on a chairman’s seat.
At the end we headed downstairs, to the ground floor, where a model of UNO stands. And there we heard another interesting details, e.g. that the building belongs to Austria but UN pays for the rental symbolic 7 cents each year. And Austria earn around 4 millions euro per year thanks to the UNO.
Recently, a new UN conference center was opened here. It’s very modern and, for example, when you leave the room and enter the toilet, the air-condition starts working and thus the costs of energy usage are reduced. The first meetings are planned for January, and the visitor will be able to enter the building few months later.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment