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22 October 1998

This morning, the plenary took note of the notification by the Secretary-General under article 12, paragraph 2 of the Charter of the United Nations regarding the matters relative to the maintenance of international peace and security that are being dealt with by the Security Council and of the matters with which the Security Council has ceased to deal. It also adopted without a vote two draft resolutions dealing with cooperation between the United Nations and the League of Arab States and the Organization of American States, respectively. With regard to the issue of cooperation between the United Nations and the Latin American Economic System, the President drew the attention of the delegations to a letter dated 19 October 1998 from the Permanent Representative of Peru, indicating that States members of SELA did not intend to submit a draft resolution for consideration by the plenary at this session, but requested that this item be deferred to the fifty-fourth session. The plenary then resumed consideration of the report of the Security Council and heard the final seven speakers on this item.

The plenary decided yesterday to defer until Monday the consideration of the reports of the Fifth Committee regarding the support account for peacekeeping operations and gratis personnel. It also decided on the schedule of several upcoming pledging conferences, so that the 1998 UN/FAO pledging conference for the World Food Programme will take place on 3 November in the afternoon; the 1998 UN Pledging conference for development activities will be held on 4 and 5 November during the morning sessions; the announcement of voluntary contributions to the 1999 programme of UNHCR will take place in the morning of 13 November; and the announcement of 1999 contributions to the programmes of UNRWA will take place on 3 December in the morning.

Tomorrow morning, the General Committee will meet to consider two requests for inclusion of additional items to the agenda of the fifty-third session. In a letter dated 114 September 1998, the Permanent Representative of the Democratic Republic of the Congo requested the inclusion of the item entitled "Armed aggression against the Democratic Republic of the Congo", while the Permanent Representative of the Islamic Republic of Iran requested in a letter dated 5 October 1998 the inclusion of the item entitled "Dialogue among civilizations".

All the Main Committees are meeting today. The First Committee will return this afternoon to the consideration of the rationalization of its work and reform of its agenda. The Special Political And Decolonization Committee began consideration this morning of item 92 -- International cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space. Also this morning, its working group on this item was meeting, following the adjournement of the formal meeting. The Second Committee is holding this morning a joint session, through video conferencing, with the high-level segment of the Trade and Development Board of UNCTAD on the topic "The impact of financial crisis on trade, investment and development: regional perspectives". This afternoon, it will resume consideration of item 94 -- Environment and sustainable development. The Third Committee was scheduled to conclude this morning its general discussion of the promotion and protection of the rights of children, and then take action on two draft resolutions on crime prevention and criminal justice and one on international drug control. The Fifth Committee will hold informal consultations the whole day, first on the Development account, and then on programme planning. And finally, the Sixth Committee will discuss both in the morning and in the afternoon the issue of establishment of an international criminal court.

And finally, I would like to inform you that tomorrow afternoon, a panel discussion will be held under the auspices of the Second Committee on the issue of "How to achieve a better coherence and improved coordination among environmental and environment-related conventions". This will take place from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm in conference room 2. The panellists will include the Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the UN Convention to Combat Desertification, Mr. Hama Arba Diallo; Executive Secretary of the Secretariat of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, Mr. Michael Zammit-Cutajar; the Director of the Division of Coordination on Environmental Convention of UNEP; and a representative of the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity.

Also tomorrow, under the auspices of the Fifth Committee, the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management, Ms. Rafiah Salim, will brief interested delegations on the report of the Secretary-General on the human resources management reform. That will take place at 3:00 pm in conference room 5.

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