Recruitment has taken place for most of the positions needed at the present stage of work for the New York-based core staff, which comprises 43 persons, of whom 10 are women, from 20 Member States. In addition, there are 23 persons on the roster of trained and qualified inspectors. The second month-long training course conducted by the Commission commenced on 7 November and will finish on 8 December. Fifty-eight persons, encompassing some 23 nationalities, are taking part. The Commission expresses its gratitude to the lecturers who gave their time without fee, and also to the Government of France which provided facilities and personnel for health and safety training, as well as visits to sites relevant to the study of various weapons disciplines and technologies.
Preparations are under way for a third training course.
Other activities 14. The College will be given information, early in 2001, on the progress made with regard to such revisions. These activities include studies to determine the priority of sites to be inspected and the formats of reporting from the field. The formats for declarations by Iraq are also being reviewed and revised, with a view to standardizing them across the weapons disciplines and making them more user-friendly for Iraq and more useful for the Commission. One element of this work is to plan for the analysis of declarations that the Government of Iraq should have provided since December 1998 and that should become available upon the resumption of inspections.