UN chief to visit Norway for summit on education

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- Moon will leave New York Sunday for Norway to attend the Oslo Summit on Education for Development and visit the Arctic region, announced Farhan Haq, the deputy UN spokesman, here Monday.

Upon arrival in Oslo, capital of Norway, the next day, the secretary-general will participate in the global launch of the Millennium Development Goals Progress Report, said Haq at a daily news briefing here.

"He will first address via VTC (Video TeleConference) the launch ceremony at Headquarters in New York, before holding a joint press conference with Paul Kagame, president of Rwanda, and Ms. Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway, both members of the MDG Advocacy Group."

The Millennium Development Goals (MDG) is a set of eight anti- poverty targets to be reached by the end of this year.

He will also attend a humanitarian forum on the "Role of Civil Society in Humanitarian Emergencies" with Borge Brende, minister of foreign affairs of Norway.

On Tuesday, the secretary-general will participate in the Oslo Summit on Education for Development. He will also meet with Crown Prince Haakon and other high-level officials.

The secretary-general will then depart for Longyearbyen, the largest populated area on the territory of Svalbard, located in the high Norwegian Arctic, to board the research vessel RV Lance.

In the run-up to the Paris Conference, which is to be held in December, the secretary-general will be briefed by scientists and observe first-hand effects of climate change on the region, which he visited in 2009.

"This visit will include an excursion to the Blomstrandbreen glacier to see first-hand the dramatic changes to the ice, as well as briefings at the Kings Bay Marine Laboratory and the Svalbard Satellite Station," said the spokesman.

The United Nations hopes that the international community will together deliver a new, ambitious and universally binding climate agreement in Paris in December.

The secretary-general will be back in New York Thursday.