Prime Time's Mark Little to Interview UN Secretary General

RTE Prime Time: Mark

Mark Little will be interviewing the Secretary General of the United Nations, Ban Ki-Moon tomorrow for Prime Time on Thursday night.

There are a thousand different topics that the interview could cover, Mark has his own plans for it already. He will read the thread before the beforehand though, so feel free to leave questions for the Secretary General below and if they end up being of use during the interview he may use them - though we can't guarantee he will use any this time around.

The interview will be broadcast on our show at 9.30pm Thursday on RTÉ One. We have a 25 minute time-slot with the secretary general but we'll only be showing about 7 minutes on the show (not all our viewer are interested in the UN, there are other issues to cover this week also). However, it would be a pity to leave the remaining footage on the editing room floor so we're hoping to put some of it on Youtube and post it here some time on Friday.

Mark Little will also be on here for a time on Friday to discuss the interview, add context to the issues discussed, talk about what he used for research prior to the interview... etc etc...

We look forward to any input and the coming discussion.
See here and here for similar threads run by Prime Time on Boards.ie.

Mark

star gazer

Does he believe that in the next fifty years the face of the planet will change utterly, as a result of climate change?
What three things does he hope UN member nations will do, collectively or individually, to avoid the worst affects of climate change?

DeVore

Lets kick off with some straight shooting:

Does he feel that the unilateral actions of the "Coalition of the Willing" with regard to Iraq damaged the UN's standing internationally?

I'll be back with more but thats my primary question/concern.

DeV.

solice

Thank you Prime Time!

Is the UN security council just a talking shop? The war in Iraq was fought under the idea that Sadam had wapons of mass destruction, found to be a lie, and yet the countries that started the war the US and UK are not punished. Are they above the law?

Ireland is under severe pressure to cut costs due to our poor public finances. Would it be such a bad thing to withdraw our peace keeping troops and overseas aid programs?

Cheers
Sol

sparklepants

Does Mr Ban believe that China can be convinced to sign up to a binding limit on CO2 emissions growth at the Copenhagen summit in December?

Would Mr. Ban share the view that western countries should somehow bear the burden of China’s limit, given that most of the country's emissions can be directly or indirectly attributed to goods consumed in the west?

is_that_so

How does he intend to address the urgent issue of UN and UN agencies reform? Is there a timescale and plan for this?

Time Magazine

As nations become more concerned about short-term economic recovery, to what extent will the current financial crisis hinder the efforts to curb climate change?

In that vein, how important is maintaining growth to ensuring developed nations do not lose all appetite for serious environmental reform?

DeVore

What is his response to the idea that every piece of fossil fuel and light oil will be combusted by either first, second or third world countries at some point in the future so we should be concentrating research on removing carbon from the atmosphere rather then preventing it getting there in the first place?

DeV.

Time Magazine

Would he agree that the pursuit of "nuclear technology" by certain nations poses a greater threat to the world than climate change?

lostexpectation

is it peacekeeping our backing the wests man? << question

deby been in power chad for 18 years!, ireland is just greenwsah for france continued imperialism.

same with the peacekeepers in haiti only coming in after the right elite kick out him out and then you turn up to 'peacekeep' which is just way to militarily back your man.

DeVore

Questions.... not speeches.

DeV.

stevenmu

Many people in Africa have called for an end to foreign aid, claiming that it prevents the poorest nations developing the industry, infrastructure and systems that they need to develop to support themselves. Has the UN investigated this option and what does it feel would happen if UN aid to Africa was stopped (or drastically reduced)?

Pride Fighter

How can the security council operate effectively when 5 nations have a veto? Will the veto ever be removed in the UN? That way nations like Burma and North Korea which have Chinese backing can be returned to democracy and steered away from dictatorship.

Time Magazine

stevenmu wrote: »

Many people in Africa have called for an end to foreign aid, claiming that it prevents the poorest nations developing the industry, infrastructure and systems that they need to develop to support themselves. Has the UN investigated this option and what does it feel would happen if UN aid to Africa was stopped (or drastically reduced)?

(I know this is a page for questions, but I can give you an answer to that one.)

Yes, the UN have investigated it. No, they do not agree with this view. View, for example, the UN Development Programme or the World Food Programme, or Millenium Development Goals. It has been asserted by the UN as recently as 2002 that nations should commit at least 0.7% of their national income towards development assistance.

Where does he see the dollar going?

brianthebard

Does he see the UN playing a role in the present crisis in Honduras?

Mario007

As a general secretary of the UN Mr Ban can be regarded as the most senior figure in the world, however what can he really do? Does the UN have enough power to fulfill its goals ie world peace and constructive dialogue? Will the EU be accepted in the UN Security Council instead of France, Germany and Britain in the future.
And lastly, for a random question, does he support Lisbon, or the way the EU is heading?

Moriarty

Thanks for this opportunity.

Questions:

- What's the end-game for Zimbabwe? The unity government surely can't last.. taking in to account the cholera deaths amongst all the other problems, surely mugabe has to go? What's Mr. Ban's opinion of the African Union's response to the crisis?

- It seems like the current heightened tensions surrounding north korea may be due to internal political machinations.. the question is, how far should the international community tolerate north korea's actions and what, if any, further actions can be taken against north korea if they do step too far? Is it possible to take any further action without causing unjustifiable harm to the people of north korea?

gurramok

Will the UN be paralysed on a future Iranian nuclear crisis now that the hardliners in Iran have kept their grip on power and a possible veto from maybe Russia will not help get the crisis resolved peacefully?

Will the recent civil unrest in China affect the working relationship between world powers?

JonathanAnon

Why did the UN go missing during the Falklands War in 1982? Should they not have stepped in and negotiated a peaceful solution? Does the UN condone the sinking of the Belgrano?

And dont get me started on that 800 years of oppression. :mad:

Scofflaw

JonathanAnon wrote: »

Why did the UN go missing during the Falklands War in 1982? Should they not have stepped in and negotiated a peaceful solution? Does the UN condone the sinking of the Belgrano?

And dont get me started on that 800 years of oppression. :mad:

Indeed - don't start on it. Questions, not speeches.

moderately,
Scofflaw

RTE Prime Time: Mark

Sorry I haven't come back to the thread since I posted - I try to come back and notify people that we've taken questions on board but didn't get a chance this time 'round. Mark read the thread before the interview, I'm not sure he used any but I'm sure he'll tell you himself tomorrow. I'm heading into work early in the morning to stick the full interview on Youtube - I'll embed it here thereafter and Mark will join us for a discussion.

Apologies again, busy week in Prime Time.

Edit: BTW - we're on RTÉ One now discussing the new criminal justice bill, the electricians strike and showing the Ban Ki-Moon interview. You can watch online live on www.rte.ie/live or later on www.rte.ie/player

lostexpectation

what question did you actually ask about irish peacekeeping, seems like peacekeeprs are beyond question as ever.

RTE Prime Time: Mark

Apologies for not making an appearance on this thread earlier. Right off the bat, let me say the quality of the suggested questions has been overwhelming. I went through them on Wednesday morning and realised i couldn't do them all justice. But they certainly informed my thinking - on this and future interviews.

Given all the effort you put in to sending questions, I should briefly outline what thought process goes into a big interview like this week's encounter with Ban Ki Moon. It's always a struggle to get a good meaty foreign affairs topic on Prime Time and an ever bigger struggle getting viewers to stay tuned. So, to begin, I have to consider what questions a general audience - those without specialist knowledge or vested interests - will want asked (that starts with the basic 'who is this guy?', 'what makes him tick?) I look at the week's news agenda (in this case, G8, Darfur, climate change, Lisbon) and see how the interview can be linked to pressing questions of the day. I will also think of points of conflict where the interview can make a difference or make a headline; in the case of Ban Ki Moon, I felt it was essential that I press him on his view of cutbacks in Irish Aid. Beyond the generalist, news-related and conflict questions, I try and find areas where I think Prime Time can raise something new - some unseen or hidden story that deserves to be discussed.

To be quite honest, with big names like Ban Ki Moon, we rarely get the time to get into those unpredictable exhanges. With Ban, we had 16 minutes. In and out. No messing around. As a result, we only really had a chance to skim the surface of five or six topics.

All that is by way of explanation. I will go through the thread and see if there are specific questions that relate to our interview. And, of course, if there is anything you would like to ask in retrospect, please do.

RTE Prime Time: Mark

Mario007 wrote: »

As a general secretary of the UN Mr Ban can be regarded as the most senior figure in the world, however what can he really do? Does the UN have enough power to fulfill its goals ie world peace and constructive dialogue? Will the EU be accepted in the UN Security Council instead of France, Germany and Britain in the future.
And lastly, for a random question, does he support Lisbon, or the way the EU is heading?

Ban seems to me to be a mediator rather than a powerbroker. He seems to play the role that a roving trouble-shooting diplomat will play in a foreign ministry rather than being the actual foreign minister. However, Ban did criticise western governments this week for not helping developing countries deal with climate change and this ruffled some feathers at the G8. So, he can occasionally provide a rallying point for dissent within the world order.

I didn't ask him about the role of the EU at the security council but I get the sense that he wants Europe to take some of the peacekeeping burden off the UN. And he told me that Lisbon is consistent with Ireland's role within the UN, in pretty certain terms. I notice though he didn't really address my initial question which was about Irish fears about the militarisation of Europe.

RTE Prime Time: Mark

lostexpectation wrote: »

what question did you actually ask about irish peacekeeping, seems like peacekeeprs are beyond question as ever.

I asked Ban how much more he expected Ireland to contribute to UN peacekeeping (the previous day he seemed to suggest there was more that could be done). He answered with a really intense dollop of detailed praise for Ireland's historic contribution to the UN peacekeeping mission down the years but he didn't really get into specific demands of Ireland. I never got to ask him about the pro's and con's of any specific mission.

RTE Prime Time: Mark

star gazer wrote: »

Does he believe that in the next fifty years the face of the planet will change utterly, as a result of climate change?
What three things does he hope UN member nations will do, collectively or individually, to avoid the worst affects of climate change?

The one thing you notice when researching Ban is his commitment to climate change. He has clearly made it the defining priority of his tenure. His most animated moments in our interview (and animated is not his default position) came in response to my question about specific targets for the Copenhagen conference on climate change. He said with real emphasis the developed world must ''seal the deal'' at Copenhagen. And he didn't just mean with notional targets on carbon emissions but also with substantial financial and technical support for developing nations like China, India and Brazil who need to find some way to mitigate the climate impact of their booming economies.

RTE Prime Time: Mark

solice wrote: »

Thank you Prime Time!

Is the UN security council just a talking shop? The war in Iraq was fought under the idea that Sadam had wapons of mass destruction, found to be a lie, and yet the countries that started the war the US and UK are not punished. Are they above the law?

Ireland is under severe pressure to cut costs due to our poor public finances. Would it be such a bad thing to withdraw our peace keeping troops and overseas aid programs?

Cheers
Sol

Iraq was one of the issues I never got to ask Ban about.

As to the impact of our poor public finances, Ban says it can be no excuse for cutting back on our overseas aid. And the same goes for Ireland's contribution to UN peacekeeping.

RTE Prime Time: Mark

sparklepants wrote: »

Does Mr Ban believe that China can be convinced to sign up to a binding limit on CO2 emissions growth at the Copenhagen summit in December?

Would Mr. Ban share the view that western countries should somehow bear the burden of China’s limit, given that most of the country's emissions can be directly or indirectly attributed to goods consumed in the west?

This was one of the questions that jumped out at me on Wednesday morning because it was so timely. Had Hu Jintao of China not had to leave the G8 summit early on Tuesday night, this question would have been a point of real debate on Wednesday.

Ban was absolutely emphatic - China and other rapidly developing nations need the help of developed countries if they are to meet the kind of ambitious targets that will be set for them at the Copenhagen summit this autumn.

lostexpectation

are you saying we have 'specialist knowledge or vested interests'?

To be quite honest, with big names like Ban Ki Moon, we rarely get the time to get into those unpredictable exhanges

so whats point of interviewing them? you want to do same interview as everyone else, how does the help viewers?

he said we should fulfil our aids pledges, what else would he say? he knew coming you'd ask that, he delivered'd you the line, how cosy.
you put the 'it doesn't effect our neutrality' words into his mouth
he seems to play the role of excusing the actions of the world big players

it was hard to tell what your questions actually were because of the voiceover.

RTE Prime Time: Mark

stevenmu wrote: »

Many people in Africa have called for an end to foreign aid, claiming that it prevents the poorest nations developing the industry, infrastructure and systems that they need to develop to support themselves. Has the UN investigated this option and what does it feel would happen if UN aid to Africa was stopped (or drastically reduced)?

It's a good question but I think the UN sees itself right now as an emergency service saving lives rather than a development agency promoting growth. Ban told me 80 million depend on UN food supplies every day. He told me this situation can't go on but it is hard to see how the world community can place its aid programme on a more productive, sustainable and cooperative footing when there is such absolute immediate need and when the Western government are failing to live up to commitment made at Gleneagles five years ago (Ban says the G8 countries are 20 billion dollars short of their commitments)