In progress at UNHQ

GA/9640

UNITED NATIONS LAUNCHES MILLENNIUM ASSEMBLY WEB SITE AT HTTP://WWW.UN.ORG/MILLENNIUM

22 October 1999


Press Release
GA/9640
PI/1190


UNITED NATIONS LAUNCHES MILLENNIUM ASSEMBLY WEB SITE AT HTTP://WWW.UN.ORG/MILLENNIUM

19991022

The United Nations is launching today a new Web site for the Millennium Assembly and Millennium Summit it will hold next year. The United Nations General Assembly decided to designate its fifty-fifth session, which will open on 5 September 2000, as “The Millennium Assembly of the United Nations”. The Millennium Summit, which is likely to be the largest gathering of heads of State or government ever held, will consider challenges facing the United Nations in the new century and how best to meet them. It will open on 6 September 2000 at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

For Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Millennium Assembly “offers a timely opportunity for the world's leaders to look beyond their pressing daily concerns and consider what kind of United Nations they can envision and will support in the new century”.

The Web site will provide continuously updated information on the Millennium Assembly and the Millennium Summit, as well as on preparations leading up to the Summit, including United Nations regional hearings. The Web site will also provide links to the many Web sites relating to activities organized by civil society in connection with the Millennium Assembly. Among these is the “Millennium Forum”, to be held on 22 to 26 May 2000 at United Nations Headquarters. The Web site, initially launched in English, can be accessed at http://www.un.org/millennium.

Design for the Web site was supported by the Together Foundation for Global Unity, a not-for-profit New York-based foundation. The site will be maintained by the United Nations Department of Public Information and the Office for the Millennium Assembly.

The United Nations Web site, www.un.org, was launched in September 1996. It now receives weekly over 4 million accesses from some 140 countries, and is available in the six official languages of the Organization.

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For information media. Not an official record.