The President and Mrs. Bush to Host Lunch for
the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon
and Mrs. Ban Soon-taek.
The
President and Mrs. Bush will host United Nations
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Mrs. Ban Soon-taek
for lunch at the White House on January 6, 2009.
This meeting will be an opportunity for the President
to thank Secretary-General Ban for his leadership
of the United Nations and his cooperation on key
issues over the past two years. They will discuss
the future of the United Nations and the challenges
that remain, such as U.N. reform, the Middle East,
Burma, Somalia, and peacekeeping in Darfur. The
President will stress the need for a United Nations
that can act effectively to promote freedom, democratic
governance, human rights, and a world free from
terror.
President
Bush will welcome President Felipe Calderon of
Mexico to the White House on January 13, 2009.
This visit provides an opportunity to highlight
our strong relationship with Mexico. The two leaders
will discuss our partnership to confront criminal
organizations and related violence that plague
the region, including implementation of the Merida
Initiative. The President will also use the meeting
to again acknowledge President Calderon's courage
and the people of Mexico's sacrifice in confronting
the drug traffickers.
Speaking of the Mexco's full commitment to the
fight against terrorism, back In year 2001, October
4th, Mexico President, Fox stated that "obviously,
our nation is now focused on the incidents of
September 11th. But I assured him our relationship
will go forward, that we'll work on the issues
that we had discussed the last time we were here.
I talked to my friend about our economy. It has
been affected significantly by the actions of
September the 11th. But I assured him that we
will take an aggressive role at the federal level
to try to spur economic growth, which is very
important, since we've got a significant amount
of trade between our nations."
"
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