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14 October 1998

This morning, the plenary began consideration of agenda item 29 "Necessity of ending the economic, financial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba." The first speaker was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba, with 19 other speakers scheduled to address the Assembly, and additional nine to speak in explanation of vote before, and three after the Assembly takes action on this item -- the draft resolution on this item, which was introduced by Cuba, is contained in document A/53/L.6.

Tomorrow morning, the Assembly is first scheduled to take up item 158, World Solar Programme 1996-2005 -- a draft resolution on this matter will be issued in document A/53/L.8. It will also consider item 159, Observer status for the Association of Caribbean States in the General Assembly -- draft resolution is contained in document A/53/L.3, as well as item 162, Observer status for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in the General Assembly, with draft resolution contained in document A/53/L.4.

As for the work of the Main Committees, the First Committee is continuing its general debate this morning, with 11 speakers inscribed; the Special Political and Decolonization Committee will open up this afternoon the debate of item 81, Effects of atomic radiation; this morning, the Second Committee began discussion of item 95, Operational activities. This afternoon from 4:00 to 6:00 pm, it will hold a panel discussion on "United Nations Development Assistance Framework". The panellists will be Mr. James Gustave Speth, Administrator of UNDP; Dr. Nafis Sadik, Executive Director of UNFPA; Carol Bellamy, Executive Director of UNICEF; and John Powell, Director of the Strategy and Policy Division of WFP. The Third Committee began this morning the consideration of item 103, Advancement of Women and item 104, Implementation of the Outcome of the Fourth World Conference of Women. The Fifth Committee is continuing this morning with informal consultations on item 143, regarding the Support Account for peacekeeping operations. This afternoon , it will first continue discussion of Programme planning (item 114) and scale of assessments for the apportionment of expenses of the United Nations (Bosnia and Herzegovina requested an exemption in the application of article 19 of the Charter), before resuming informal consultations on the Support Account for peacekeeping operations. Also today, the Working Group of the Sixth Committee on the United Nations Decade of International Law is beginning its work. It is considering draft guiding principles for international negotiations -- it has before it two documents on this item A/52/141 and A/53/332 and Add.1. Later this afternoon, the Sixth Committee will also resume informal consultations on item 38 -- Law of the Sea.