World Notes United Nations

Debating the world's problems is thirsty work. So when United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar eliminated the delegates' carafes of ice water to save an estimated $100,000 a year, parched orators objected.

A resolution to restore the H2O allotment next year was introduced, provoking a three-hour committee debate, half serious, half silly. "Water is life," intoned Bernards Mudho of Kenya, but Maria Regina Serrao Emerson of Portugal called the debate "frivolous." At meeting's end, after Even Fontaine-Ortiz of Cuba facetiously noted that overtime pay for translators and guards had cost as much as any water saved, the resolution was referred to the General Assembly's plenary session, which tabled it without further thirst- inducing debate.