Back to Home Page

Back to General Assembly

28 September 1998

As I informed you on Friday, the President of the fifty-third session is this motning in Washington, D. C. He is currently addressing the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States on the issue of new challenges before the United Nations. He will be back in New York this afternoon and preside over the afternoon plenary meeting.

The speakers in the plenary this morning are the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Philippines, Oman, Singapore, Belize, San Marino and Tunisia.

This afternoon, the Assembly will continue the general debate with addresses by the Vice President of Seychelles, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation of the United Republic of Tanzania and the Chairman of the delegation of Antigua and Barbuda. The Assembly will also hear an address by His Excellency Mr. Yasir Arafat of Palestine. Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan and Algeria, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Gambia, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Croatia and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, will also speak.

On Friday afternoon, the President announced in the Plenary that Vanuatu had made the necessary payment to reduce its arrears below the amount specified in Article 19 of the Charter. That still leaves 14 Member States in that category.

Also on Friday, the Assembly received the tentative schedule of items to be considered until 16 October. It is available in document A/INF/53/3. The list of speakers for those items is now open.

I would also like to inform you that after all the speakers in the general debate tomorrow morning, the Assembly will take up the election of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees [item 16 B].

On the side table are copies of the list of speakers for today and tomorrow, as well as the update no. 6 to the list of speakers in the general debate.