The 59th UN General Assembly on Monday postponed its closing session to Tuesday, pending hard negotiation on the outcome document that may go far into Monday night.

After a weekend of lengthy negotiations by a negotiating group of about 15 countries, some senior diplomats said earlier Monday that there would be a final document before the closing session that was originally scheduled for Monday morning. However, their last-minute effort to produce a final document did not materialize and they had to postpone the talk to the next day.

The issues that negotiators have been focusing on are terrorism, the setting up of a Human Rights Council with more authority to replace the existing Human Rights Commission, a new Peace-building Commission to help conflict-torn nations; the governments' responsibility to protect civilians from genocide and war crimes; disarmament and nuclear nonproliferation; UN management reforms, and development.

(Xinhua News Agency September 13, 2005)