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23 October 1998

This morning, the General Committee met and agreed to recommend to the General Assembly the inclusion of two additional items to the agenda on the fifty-third session -- an item entitled "Aggression against the Democratic Republic of the Congo" and another entitled "Dialogue among civilizations". Both items are to be considered in the plenary. The report of the General Committee will be considered in the plenary Monday morning. Also on Monday, the General Assembly will hold elections for the seven members of the Committee on Programme and Coordination and for a member of the Joint Inspection Unit. It will then take up the issue of "Elimination of coercive measures as a means of political and economic compulsion". There are eight speakers inscribed so far to address the plenary on this item and there is also a draft resolution on this item (A/53/L.7/Rev.1). Finally, the plenary will take up three reports of the Fifth Committee, on gratis personnel, support account and on the financial arrangements for the International Trade Centre.

Today, of course, we are observing the UN Day. The message by the President of the General Assembly was issued yesterday as a press release in English and Spanish, and the President will deliver an opening statement at the UN Day Concert this afternoon in the General Assembly Hall.

As for the Main Committees, the First Committee is meeting this afternoon to introduce and consider items 60 to 80 and relevant draft resolutions before the Committee. The Second Committee began this morning with the issue of Sustainable development and international economic cooperation and four draft resolution on various subitems were introduced. The Committee then continued the discussion of the issue of environment and sustainable development, which will be concluded this afternoon beginning at 4:30pm -- you will recall that I announced yesterday that a panel discussion on "How to Achieve a Better Cohereence and Improved Coordination among environmental and Environment Related Conventions will be held. The Third Committee opened this morning the consideration of the Elimination of racism and racial discrimination and the right of peoples to self-determination. The Fifth Committee began this morning with the conclusion of the discussion on the pattern of conferences and then took action on three draft resolutions regarding financing of peacekeeping missions, namely, the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara, UN Mission of Observers in Tajikistan and UN Preventive Deployment Force. It also held further discussions of programme planning and the scale of assessments, and then proceeded with informal consultations on this last item. This afternoon, as I informed you yesterday, the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Resources Management will brief the Committee on the report of the Secretary-General on human resources management reform-- at 3:00 pm in conference room 5.