NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS SECRETARY-GENERAL TRAVELS TO WASHINGTON, CALIFORNIA

Press Release

NOTE TO CORRESPONDENTS SECRETARY-GENERAL TRAVELS TO WASHINGTON, CALIFORNIA

Secretary-General Kofi Annan will travel for three days starting on Friday, 9 June, first to Washington, D.C., where he will speak to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and from there to San Francisco, California, where he will deliver a commencement speech at Stanford University.

On Friday evening, 9 June, the Secretary-General is to deliver the keynote address to the seventeenth National Convention of the American-Arab Anti- Discrimination Committee, at the Crystal Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Virginia. He will discuss the importance of tolerance and dialogue and the need for shared values among the world's people. Other convention speakers are to include United States Under-Secretary of State Thomas Pickering, Palestinian activist Hanan Ashrawi, and former United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Hans von Sponeck. The programme begins at 7 p.m.

On Saturday morning, 10 June, the Secretary-General will depart the Washington, D.C., area for California. He will arrive in San Francisco that afternoon, and is an invited guest at Stanford University's commencement reception and dinner that evening.

On Sunday, 11 June, at 9:30 a.m., the Secretary-General is to deliver the commencement speech at Stanford University. He is expected to discuss environmental initiatives presented earlier this year in his Millennium Report.

At 2:30 p.m., Nane Annan, wife of the Secretary-General, will preview her forthcoming book, "The United Nations: Come Along with Me!", in an event at the Hewlett-Packard Corporate Headquarters in Palo Alto. Written for children and published by the American Forum for Global Education, the book, which will be published this summer, is a child's introduction to the work of the United Nations, as shown through the travels of Mrs. Annan.

At 5 p.m., the Secretary-General will attend a private reception at Palo Alto's Garden Court Hotel to support the efforts of Roots of Peace, a California- based non-profit organization dedicated to the eradication of landmines which intends to use demined land for agricultural production, including vineyards in Croatia.

- 2 - Note No. 5613 9 June 2000

That evening, the Secretary-General and Nane Annan will be the guests of Scott Cook, the founder and Chairman of Intuit, the company that developed Quicken software, at a dinner with about 10 Silicon Valley executives in Palo Alto. The Secretary-General hopes to have an exchange with those executives on how to work together as part of his "Digital Bridges" initiative, detailed in the Millennium Report, to bring together digital expertise from the public and private sectors.

On Monday afternoon, the Secretary-General will return to New York.

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