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Yesterday afternoon, the President of the fifty-third session issued a statement urging assistance for the victims of hurricane Mitch; that of course following the adoption by the plenary of resolution 53/1 C on the Emergency assistance to Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama.

This morning, the plenary began the elections of nine judges for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. The Assembly has to elect six judges for a new four-year term on the two existing Chambers, with the term to begin on 25 May 1999, and three judges for the new third Trial Chamber, to take office as soon as possible. A list of 18 candidates has been forwarded to the Assembly by the Security Council. The following eight candidates received the absolute majority on the first ballot: Ms. Navanethem Pillay (South Africa) 129; Mr. Laity Kama (Senegal) 125; Mr. Dionysios Kondylis (Greece) 112; Mr. Mehmet Guney (Turkey) 109; Mr. Pavel Dolenc (Slovenia) 102; Mr. William Sekule (United Republic of Tanzania) 100; Mr. Yakov Ostrovsky (Russian Federation) 98; and Erik Mose (Norway).

This afternoon, the 1998 UN/FAO Pledging Conference for the World Food Programme will be held in the Trusteeship Council Chamber.

Tomorrow morning, the plenary will take up item 168, entitled Dialogue among civilizations. Several speakers have been inscribed to address the Assembly on this item, and the list remains open.

This evening, the President of the fifty-third session will travel to his home country to take care of his responsibilities as Foreign Minister of Uruguay. He will be back in New York on Monday.

As for the main committees, the First Committee began this morning to take action on the draft resolutions before it -- this is the last stage of its deliberations at the current session. The Special Political and Decolonization Committee will continue this afternoon the consideration of the Comprehensive review of the whole question of peacekeeping operations in all their aspects. The Second Committee concluded this morning the general discussion of the First UN Decade for the Eradication of Poverty. Also, two draft resolutions were introduced in the Committee -- on the Implementation of the Programme of Action for the Least Developed Countries in the 1990s and on UNU. The Committee is also scheduled to hold informal consultations on a series of draft resolutions. The Third Committee is concluding this morning the general discussion of the Comprehensive implementation of the Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action on Human Rights. Starting tomorrow, until Friday, it will hear introductory statements by the Special Representatives and Special Rapporteurs -- the schedule of these presentations is listed in the Journal. The Fifth Committee is holding informal consultations the whole day, this morning on the pattern of conferences, and this afternoon on the implementaion of resolution 48/218 B (which established the Office of Internal Oversight Services). The Sixth Committee will continue this afternoon its consideration of the report of the International Law Commission on its fiftieth session.