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8 December 1998

Yesterday afternoon, the President of the fifty-third session left New York to attend the meeting of the Council of Ministers and the summit meeting of Mercosur, in his capacity as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Uruguay. He will be back in New York Thursday morning.

This morning, draft resolution A/53/L.67, submitted by the President of the Assembly and entitled Fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was issued. This is the text on which the Assembly is expected to take action during the observance of the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights this Thursday.

This morning, the adopted two draft resolutions under the item entitled Strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian and disaster relief assistance of the United Nations, including special economic assistance, dealing with assistance to Somalia and special economic assistance to Central and East African countries receiving refugees, returnees and displaced persons. The plenary also decided to defer consideration of several items before it to the next, fifty-fourth session of the Assembly. These items are those on the Declaration of the Assembly of the Heads of States and Government of the OAU on the aerial and naval military attack against the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya by the present US Administration in April 1986; Armed Israeli aggression against the Iraqi nuclear installations and its grave consequences for the established international system concerning the peaceful uses of nuclear energy, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and international peace and security; Consequences of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait; Implementation of United Nations resolutions; and Launching of global negotiations on international economic cooperation for development. The Assembly deferred to a later date the consideration the Question of the Comorian island of Mayotte. Last item this morning was the Situation of democracy and human rights in Haiti. The Assembly had before it a report of the Secretary-General, a draft resolution introduced by Venezuela (L.57) together with the report of the Fifth Committee concerning the programme budget implications of the draft. There were five other speakers on this item before the Assembly adopted the draft without a vote.

This afternoon, the Assembly will consider the reports of the Sixth Committee.

Tomorrow morning, the Assembly will continue consideration of item 20:Strengthening of the coordination of humanitarian and disaster relief assistance of the United Nations: Emergency international assistance for peace, normalcy and reconstruction of war-stricken Afghanistan: the situation in Afghanistan and its implications for international peace and security. There are three reports of the Secretary-General before the Assembly (A/53/346, 455 and 695), and a draft resolution contained in document A/53/L.66, to be introduced by Germany. Six other speakers have inscribed so far.

Tomorrow afternoon, the plenary will take up the reports of the Third Committee.

The Fifth Committee was scheduled to conclude this morning its general discussion of the first performance report of the budget for the current biennium; as well as of the outline of the proposed budget for the next biennium. It will also conclude consideration of the tenth progress report of the Secretary-General on the Integrated Management Information System, and take action on the draft resolution on the United Nations pension system. It will then resume informal consultations which will also continue this afternoon, this evening and tonight -- until 12:30 am.