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This morning, the plenary began by paying tribute to the late Head of State of the Islamic Federal Republic of the Comoros, His Excellency Mr. Mohamed Taki Abdoulkarim, who passed away on 5 November 1998. Chairmen of all regional groups spoke, as did the representative of the host country and of the Comoros. The plenary then proceeded to consider the first report of the Credentials Committee (A/53/556). Egypt, Islamic Republic of Iran and the Observer of Palestine spoke before the plenary adopted the report without a vote and opened consideration of draft resolution A/53/L.24 which was introduced by Kyrgyzstan, and emanated from the report of the Economic and Social Council. This resolution, proclaiming the year 2002 as the International Year of the Mountains, was sponsored by 136 Member States and it was adopted without a vote. The Assembly then began consideration of item 31 -- Culture of peace. There are 23 speakers inscribed to address the plenary on this item and there is a draft resolution (A/53/L.25), which was introduced by the representative of Bangladesh, and would proclaim the decade from 2001 to 2010 as the International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World. The meeting will continue into the afternoon.

The First Committee will meet this afternoon to continue taking action on all draft resolutions before it. In the Second Committee, several draft resolutions were introduced this morning, under the items of Macroeconomic policy questions; Sustainable development and international economic cooperation; Environment and sustainable development; Training and research; and Implementation of the first UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty. The Committee also took action on several drafts, including the draft resolution entitled High-level international intergovernmental consideration of financing for development; also International Year of Microcredit 2005; Preparations for the special session of the General Assembly in 2001 to review the achievement of the goals of the World Summit for Children; and International cooperation to reduce the impact of the El Nino phenomenon. Today, the Committee will also open and conclude its consideration of the report of the Economic and Social Council and later in the afternoon will hold informal consultations on several draft resolutions. The Third Committee will conclude this afternoon the consideration of human rights questions. The Fifth Committee was scheduled to conclude this morning the consideration of the UN common system and the UN pension system and begin consideration of the report of the Secretary-General on the work of the Office of Internal Oversight Services. The Committee will also hold informal consultations in the late morning and in the afternoon on the UN common system, thematic reports of OIOS, and it will also informally assess the work of the Committee so far. The Sixth Committee will meet this afternoon to discuss the review the Statute of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal, and following the adjournment of the formal meeting will hold informal consultations on the report of the International Law Commission on the work of its fiftieth session.

Tomorrow morning, a panel discussion will be held under the auspices of the Second Committee on "The Copenhagen Seminars for Social Progress: Denmark's contribution to the discussion on the follow-up to the World Summit for Social Development". Among the participants will be Poul Nielson, Danish Minister for Development Cooperation, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, former President of Iceland; Kwame Pianim, an economist from Ghana; and Professor Richard Falk of Princeton University. The panel discussion will be held in the ECOSOC Chamber, under the chairmanship of the Chairman of the Second Committee, from 11:30 to 1:00 pm.