As part of his tour of four Asian countries, SRSG Sergio Vieira de Mello arrived in Beijing yesterday, where he met Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan. They exchanged views on the situation in East Timor, the work of UNTAET, and the UN role. SRSG thanked China for its support to UNTAET and called for further cooperation in various fields.

Before China, the SRSG visited Tokyo from 8 till 13 April. In meetings with officials from the Prime Minister's office, De Mello encouraged greater Japanese participation and continued engagement in East Timor. He asked the Japanese Government to disburse the money already pledged as soon as possible.

The SRSG also met with other government officials including Mr. Yutaka Iimura, the Director General of the Economic Cooperation Bureau. They discussed Japanese private sector investment in East Timor and preparations for the upcoming Lisbon Meeting, which will be a follow-up to the December's Donors Conference in Tokyo. De Mello will also visit Malaysia and Singapore before returning to East Timor at the end of this month.

UNTAET PKF Commander, Lt-General Jaime de los Santos has been invited by the TNI for informal discussions on Monday with the top commanders of TNI who will be on inspection tour of the border region. The TNI delegation will be led by the TNI Commander, Admiral Widodo, and will include chiefs of Indonesian Ground Forces, Navy and Air Force. General de los Santos will be accompanied by his senior staff. The meeting is to be held at Lactutus, a village in the border region of West Timor.

In a separate development, PKF Commader and Major-General Kiki Syahnakri discussed recent border crossovers by PKF and TNI. They agreed that these problems should be resolved at the level of sector commanders who are participating in Tactical Coordination Working Group. In the last week there were two instances where UNATET helicopters flew into West Timor airspace and TNI had one patrol get lost and stray into East Timor. They were met by a PKF patrol in Suai district and returned after being shown the way back to West Timor.

Mariano Lopez, former district administrator of the Maliana district and director of radio and television in East Timor, was appointed Chairman of the Public Service Commission at its fourth meeting held yesterday in Dili.

Members of the Commission discussed parental leave and job classification in the new Civil Service. Consulting the standards adopted by the International Labor Organization, the Commission recommended maternal leave of three months. Discussions on job classification have started and will be continued during the next meeting that is to be held on 25 April.