San Francisco hosts UN 50 celebrations.

• Position: 50th anniversary of United Nations celebrated in California

One of America's most beautiful cities--San Francisco, California--will provide a major setting in June for launching jubilant celebrations of the United Nations fiftieth anniversary.

As the site of the signing of the UN Charter on 26 June 1945, the Bay City, in the words of its Mayor Frank M. Jordan, will embrace the occasion "as an opportunity to celebrate our city's role in the founding of the UN, as well as to provide a venue for discussion on the future rote of the Organization':

On 25 June, UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, honorary Chairman for the San Francisco celebrations, is to open a forum of authors. scholars and policy leaders at the site of the Charter's signing--the Herbst Theatre in the Veterans War Memorial Building--to examine both UN strengths and weaknesses.

In addition, 50 years to the day the Charter was signed, representatives from every UN Member State are to gather at the War Memorial's Opera House to rededicate themselves to the principles enshrined in that document. The Secretary-General and United States President William Clinton will address that assembly.

Other events scheduled in San Francisco during a two-month-long observance from mid-April to end of June include: a major meeting of nongovernmental organizations and UN agency heads: a World Summit of Children, organized by the Coalition of Children of the Earth; and a forum of Nobel Peace Prize laureates.

The city will also serve as host to special UN anniversary performances by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, the San Francisco Opera and Ballet, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London and the Royal Ballet and the Opera de Lyons of France. A rock concert--"The UN Rocks the World"--is also planned.

Exhibits will include those on the 1945 San Francisco Charter Conference, including a bell made from melted down guns: a display of the International AIDS Memorial Quilt; and photographic exhibits documenting the work of the...