(Received from the Spokesman travelling with the Secretary-General.) Secretary-General Kofi Annan attended the Ninth Aspen Institute Communications Conference in Aspen, Colorado over the weekend of 18-19 October.
As at the Venice Film Festival, the Secretary-General, in his private conversations with communications leaders, explored ways to reach new audiences with a global message.
"We at the United Nations are convinced", he said in a dinner speech, "that information has a great liberating power waiting to be harnessed to our global struggle for peace, development and human rights." (See Press Release SG/SM/6366 of 20 October.)
The Secretary-General was in Chicago on Monday, 20 October, for his first official visit to the central United States.
His day began with a meeting with Mayor Richard Daley, followed by a session with about 40 Consuls General and a luncheon at which he addressed about 500 business, political and civic leaders, hosted by the World Trade Center of Chicago and others. (See Press Release SG/SM/6365 of 20 October.)
In the afternoon, he met with representatives of the MacArthur Foundation and then with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune. In the evening he addressed the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, as part of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Fall Lecture Forum Series (See Press Release SG/SM/6368 of 20 October.)
The Secretary-General returned to New York this morning.
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