President will attend assembly

This evening the President, Mrs McAleese, will become the first head of State from the Republic to attend a general assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Belfast. In 1991 President Robinson attended the church's general assembly which met in Dublin that year and in 1969 President de Valera attended it in Dublin also.

Mrs McAleese will be at tonight's opening in Church House, Belfast, with the Lord Lieutenant for Northern Ireland, Lady Carswell.

An issue expected to get particular attention at this year's assembly is RUC reform. It will arise during the "church and government" debate on Wednesday morning. A lively discussion is likely between those keen to see a police service acceptable to the entire community in the North and those who feel a strong debt of gratitude to the hundreds of RUC officers who lost their lives or were injured in the Troubles.

The parades issue will be discussed in the same debate, as will the new Assembly at Stormont.

The church's controversial decision last year not to join the other Christian denominations in a new Conference of Churches in Ireland may also be debated. The proposed conference has effectively been put on hold by the other churches since. The substantial minority who favoured joining the new body were disappointed at the outcome of last year's vote and may ventilate the issue again on Friday.

Asylum-seekers and Third World debt are likely to be discussed in the same debate. A trustees' report will tell the assembly on Thursday that investments in the arms trade, as well as in companies involved with gambling, tobacco and alcoholic drinks, are to be avoided. It will also be told that the church has disposed of shares it had in a company trading with Indonesia.

Tomorrow the assembly will discuss one parent's concern with the inclusion of John Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men on the GCSE English syllabus.