UN General Assembly
2000

that the age of information and its consequences have brought in their wake. These are external pressures that raise troubling uncertainties for many States and for 25 developing States in particular, that are without the blessings of abundant resources and advanced infrastructures. These are uncertainties that strain the structures of States and could come close to threatening their very existence. Where the processes of globalization are exploited to their advantage by the irresponsible or the illegitimate or the criminal, one is reminded of the report from the Secretariat received by this Assembly three years ago which drew attention to the threat to Government authority and civil society, to law and order and to legitimate economic and political institutions posed by transnational networks of crime, narcotics, money laundering and terrorism having access to sophisticated information technologies and weaponry. Of course, where there is the use of internal armed force against a State, as in my country, the complexities within a State compound themselves many times over; and we know that the use of armed