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8 October 1998

This morning, the plenary held elections for the five non-permanent seats in the Security Council, for the term of office from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2000. On the first ballot, the Assembly elected Malaysia, Namibia, Argentina, Canada and the Netherlands to fill these vacancies. Accordingly, the ten non permanent members of the Security Council from 1 January 1999 to 31 December 2000 are: Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Canada, Gabon, the Gambia, Malaysia, Namibia, the Netherlands and Slovenia. Also this morning, the President announced the schedule of the plenary until Tuesday, 3 November. The only change to the previous schedule concerns consideration of the report of the Security Council, which is being rescheduled from Monday, 12 October, to Wednesday, 21 October. The schedule is available in document A/53/INF/3/Add.1.

This afternoon, the President of the fifty-third session, Mr. Didier Opertti, will leave New York for 10 days to take care of his responsibilities as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay. He will be back in New York on Monday, 19 October.

I should mention that yesterday afternoon, the Assembly adopted without a vote a decision approving the provisional agenda of the first session of the Preparatory Committee for the special session of the General Assembly in the year 2000 on the implementation of the outcome of the World Summit for Social Development and further initiatives. The first session will take place in May 1999.

On another matter, the Assembly decided without a vote (at the recommendation of the Fifth Committee) that the non-payment of dues by the Comoros and Tajikistan was due to reasons beyond their control and decided that they would retain voting rights for the duration of the fifty-third session. Also, the Assembly decided to grant a temporary waiver for non-payment of arrears to Georgia and Guinea-Bissau for a period of three months, beginning on 7 October. Accordingly, for the next three months, the voting rights of nine Member States still remain affected by Paragraph 19 of the Charter.

Tomorrow morning, the plenary will take up consideration of the report of the Secretary-General on the causes of conflict and the promotion of durable peace and sustainable development if Africa. Sixteen speakers have been inscribed so far to address the Assembly on this item.

As for the work of the main committees, the Second Committee is continuing its general debate, with 14 speakers inscribed for this morning and 26 this afternoon; the Third Committee will conclude this morning the general discussion of social development, and will also discuss item 101, Crime prevention and criminal justice, and item 102 , international drug control -- including a dialogue with the Executive Director of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Pino Arlacchi. The Fifth Committee is holding informal consultations on a series of items , both this morning and this afternoon.