GA/9907
14 September 2001

GENERAL ASSEMBLY ELECTS 21 VICE-PRESIDENTS,
MAIN COMMITTEES’ CHAIRPERSONS

NEW YORK, 13 September (UN Headquarters) -- This afternoon, the fifty-sixth regular session of the General Assembly, among other things, elected its 21 Vice-Presidents. The Assembly was also informed about the election of its Main Committees’ Chairpersons.

The 21 Vice-Presidents elected were: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Libya, Mauritania, Sierra Leone and South Africa (Group of African States); Cambodia, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal and Saudi Arabia (Asian States); Republic of Moldova (Eastern European States); Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Paraguay (Latin American and Caribbean States); Greece and Malta (Western European and Other States); as well as the five permanent members of the Security Council China, France, Russian Federation, United Kingdom and United States.

Before that, the Assembly’s six Main Committees held brief consecutive meetings to elect their chairpersons. Following these meetings, the Assembly was informed that the following six representatives had been elected by acclamation: André Erdös (Hungary), First Committee (Disarmament and International Security); Seixas da Costa (Portugal), Second Committee (Economic and Financial); Fuad Mubarak Al-Hinai (Oman), Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural); Hasmy Agam (Malaysia), Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization); Nana Effah-Apenteng (Ghana), Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary); and Pierre Lelong (Haiti), Sixth Committee (Legal).

The Assembly also decided, on recommendation from the Chairman of the Committee on Conferences as contained in document A/56/322, that the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, the Executive Board of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the Working Group on the Financing of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) would be authorized to meet during the main part of the fifty-sixth session at United Nations Headquarters.

The General Assembly will meet again at a date to be announced in the Journal. The first meeting of the General Committee will be held Friday, 14 September at 10 a.m., in Conference Room 4.

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