After numerous long hours of travel, I am finally situated in the Netherlands and ready for the Second Review Conference to begin. Yesterday NGO attendees finally recieved information on the Conference schedule and which meetings are open to our attendance.We will be able to register and get our security badges after 9am Monday morning. The conference will officially start at 3pm Monday, and after a formal decision on the participation of observers, we will be allowed to attend all but about 15 minutes of the opening business, agenda adoption, and statement from Director General Pfirter. The general debate, open to NGO observers, will begin Monday night, continue through Tuesday and finish up Wednesday morning. On Wednesday afternoon the Convention will break and the open forum will take place at OPCW headquarters. All meetings from Thursday April 10 onward will be closed to NGOs, with the exception of the final session on April 18 where the official documents are adopted and conference declaration is made.

OPCW has also begun to post Conference documents on its website. You can now find the Journal of Meetings, the Tentative Programme of Work of the Second Review Conference (RC-2/INF.1), the Provisional Agenda for the Second Review Conference (RC-2/1), the Review of the Operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention Since the First Review Conference (RC-2/S/1), and the Report of the Scientific Advisory Board on Developments in Science and Technology (RC-2/DG.1) and Corrigendum (RC-2/DG.1/Corr.1).