When the hour changes in the English autumn and darkness falls before we leave work we know our Annual Editorial Meeting is looming. At this event the whole Co-operative - as opposed to just the editors - tries to step back from the hurly-burly of producing a monthly magazine and think about the long-term direction we are taking and the quality of the work we are producing. NI people fly in to Oxford from our offices in Toronto, Adelaide and Christchurch to take part. Meetings in past years have decided, for example, that the magazine needed a design uplift, or that one of the regular features (we call them 'outside sections' here to distinguish them from the central part devoted to one theme) was getting tired and needed to be replaced. Sometimes we commission an independent journalist whom we respect to come in and assess our performance over the previous 12 issues; on other occasions we have the results of a readers' survey to chew over.

That's just the first day. The second day is devoted to choosing the magazine topics for the following year from the hundred or so suggestions which will be on the table. Each editor will have their own pet topics that they want to work on - but these may well be shot down while a suggestion from our accountant or from outside the Co-operative might sail through with ease. After all the passionate pleading - not to mention the odd bit of tactical manoeuvring - we used to end up choosing exactly 12. Nowadays we are a bit more flexible, choosing a pool of 18 from which the editors can distill the line-up for the year.

The idea of an issue on the United Nations has often been discussed but this is the first time we have ever treated the subject. That's perhaps surprising given how closely the concerns of the UN overlap with our own. Maybe we have been to some extent self-censoring - holding back our criticism on the grounds that the UN is already too easy a target for snipers from right-wing quarters. But we knew we had to produce this issue now or never - 1995 is the UN's fiftieth anniversary and you will be doubtless be swamped with celebratory material of varying quality as the Northern summer approaches. We thought we'd get in before the deluge.

Whenever I use the words 'autumn' or 'summer' an alarm bell sounds in my mind to alert me that our readers in Australasia and South Africa experience the seasons at opposite ends of the year to us in Britain. This magazine regularly criticizes such Eurocentric cultural bias in others so we cannot afford to offend in the same way. But talk of Eurocentrism gives me licence to mention an extraordinary fact which I simply have to include somewhere in this magazine - and though this is designed to be the first thing you read, it is the last thing I write. The UN General Assembly still only sits between September and the last date on which delegates could leave by steamship and get home to Europe in time for Christmas. If ever one detail suggested a need for reform that must be it. There - I've got it in. And now I can go home happy.

Winds of change
Chris Brazier examines whether the UN can be reformed - or whether the cracks in it are too deep to be mended.

Heroes and villains
The history of the UN, seen through the personalities of its Secretaries-General.

Flashlights over Mogadishu
Should the UN have intervened in Somalia? Yes, but in a very different way, says Mohamed Sahnoun, who was the UN's envoy there.

School's out!
The NI marks the end-of-term report cards of major UN agencies like UNICEF and FAO.

What on earth were they doing?
Asks Lindsey Hilsum, who witnessed the UN's peacekeeping performance in Rwanda.

Caring, cocktails and cartoons
What do the people on the receiving end think about UN development work? Meghna Guhathakurta reports from Bangladesh.

UNITED NATIONS - THE FACTS

The new deal
Mahbub ul-Haq has made waves at the UN, pushing his own vision of 'human development'. In this NI interview he lays out his recipes for reforming the system - and the world beyond.

Navigating UN reform
Your chance to reform the Security Council. See if you can pilot your peacekeeping truck along the right path through a city where snipers and car bombs lurk.

Death of a dinosaur
Richard Gott reads the UN's last rites.

Fudging, mudging and a thousand flowers
Are UN conferences just talking shops or are they steering wheels for the world? Maggie Black sifts the evidence.

Letters
Letter from Lagos
Update
Reviews: plus Jaroslav Hasek classic
Curiosities
Endpiece: by Alison Napier
Country profile: Belarus

FRONT COVER PHOTO: A SCENE DURING UN SPONSORED ELECTIONS IN CAMBODIA, 1993,
BY TIM PAGE / REPORTAGE.
MAGAZINE DESIGNED BY JIM TURNER
ONLINE MAG MAINTAINED BY SIMON LOFFLER