UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon will visit several African nations starting next week, including South Africa and Tanzania for the first time since he assumed the UN leadership in 2007, the UN said Wednesday. Ban will also attend the March 2 international conference in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt organized to support the Palestinian people in and the reconstruction of Gaza Strip. The conference will be co-chaired by Egypt and Norway. He is scheduled to leave New York early next week, but the date for each stop in the itinerary was not made public, except for his attendance at the Sharm-el-Sheikh conference. In South Africa, Ban will meet with President Kgalema Motlanthe, former President Nelson Mandela, and some government ministers. In Tanzania, Ban will meet with President Jakaya Kikwete and address the diplomatic and academic communities in Dar-es-Salaam. Ban will also stop in the Democratic Republic of Congo for a meeting with President Joseph Kabila and visit Bukavu where the UN supports a programme to help victims of sexual violence at the Panzi Hospital. He will also visit Goma to meet with UN peacekeepers before flying on to Rwanda for talks with President Paul Kagame.
