Note to Correspondents

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki‑moon will designate the world-renowned pianist Lang Lang from China as a United Nations Messenger of Peace with a special focus on global education. The designation ceremony will take place at United Nations Headquarters on Monday, 28 October, at a press conference to be held in the Dag Hammarskjöld Library Auditorium at noon. Lang Lang will perform Chopin’s Waltz No. 1 for the occasion.

The International Day of Peace will be marked around the world on Saturday, 21 September. The Secretary-General has called on people around the world “to observe a minute of silence at noon, local time, to honour those killed in conflict and the survivors who live with daily trauma and pain”.

For the thirty-third consecutive year, the United Nations Reham al-Farra Memorial Journalists Fellowship Programme will be held at United Nations Headquarters in New York, beginning on Tuesday, 3 September.

A photography exhibition titled “Oceans” is on display in the Visitor Centre through mid-August.

The graduation ceremony for the Class of 2013 of the United Nations International School (UNIS) will take place at 4 p.m. on Friday, 7 June, in the United Nations General Assembly Hall. Mr. Hugo Lindgren, Editor of The New York Times Magazine, will be the guest speaker.

Under its ongoing discussion series, “Unlearning Intolerance”, the United Nations Academic Impact of the Department of Public Information will organize a special event at New York Headquarters to celebrate the centenary of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize in Literature for Gitanjali (“Song Offerings”).

Helping teachers bring the lessons of the Holocaust to the classroom will be the focus of a day-long programme to be held by the United Nations Department of Public Information in partnership with world-renowned authorities in the field of Holocaust education, from 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on 2 May in Conference Room 6 of the North Lawn Building, at United Nations Headquarters in New York.

On 23 and 24 April, at the United Nations Economic and Social Council, a forum on partnerships and a special dialogue highlighting the role for philanthropy in the post-2015 agenda will be held. Keynote speakers will include United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and philanthropist Mo Ibrahim.

In recognition of an interconnected world in which threats can spread rapidly within and across countries, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will open a high-level event on human security at United Nations Headquarters on 8 May.

United Nations Headquarters will host a concert titled “Jazz, a Language for Peace” and featuring the Brubeck Institute Jazz Quintet on 24 April, ahead of International Jazz Day (30 April) and coinciding with the thirty-fifth session of the Committee on Information (22 April–2 May).