To: Assignment Desk, Daybook Editor

Contact: Arthur Roselle, 248-840-6133 or 248-928-0999 (fax)

News Advisory:

-- Moon: "Time to Beat Swords into Plowshares;" 85-Year-old Evangelist Proposes Bering Strait "Peace Tunnel," Addresses Divisions in America, U.N. Reform in Interfaith Meeting

WHAT: "10th Annual True Family Values Awards Banquet" News Conference

WHEN: TODAY, Sept. 24, 11 a.m. Diplomat Room

WHERE: Hyatt Regency O'Hare, Grand Ballroom, 9300 Bryn Mawr Ave., Rosemont, Ill.

WHO: Rev. and Mrs. Sun Myung Moon; Archbishop George Augustus Stallings, Imani Temple African American Catholic Congregation; Imam Ameer Salahuddin, Islamic Center of Passaic County; Pastor Leroy Elliott, New Greater St. John Missionary Baptist Church; Rabbi David Ben-Ami, American Forum for Jewish-Christian-Muslim Cooperation; Rev. Jesse Edwards, Pentecostal Family Church, Philadelphia, PA; Rev. A. P. Randall, Pastor of Twelve Gates Missionary Baptist Church; Rabbi Dr. Mordechai Waldman, Southfield, MI; Rev. Dr. C. Phillip Johnson, New Prospect Family Praise and Worship Center, Dr. Arnold Howard, Enon Baptist Church, national and local interfaith leaders.

BACKGROUND: The Reverend Sun Myung Moon has launched what some believe is his final speaking tour in America, issuing a series of challenges to this nation. Rev. Moon's visit to Chicago coincides with the 10th Annual True Family Values Awards Banquet. A crowd expected at more than 2000 will help celebrate as a number of Chicago community leaders receive appointments as Ambassadors For Peace. The 12 US venues represent the first leg of a 100-city world tour to inaugurate the Universal Peace Federation.

Asserting that peace cannot be achieved through diplomatic and military means alone, Moon emphasizes the need for interreligious reconciliation, calling for renewal and reform at the United Nations. Addressing the economic and racial divisions in America and the world, he proposes cooperative international efforts in key areas. "Why must we continue pouring countless dollars into wars that, in the end, will never bring the reconciliation of enemies" Moon asks. "The time has come for all countries to pool their resources and advance toward the world of peace desired by God."

The still-dynamic spiritual leader has launched a dramatic appeal to the world community to undertake the most ambitious civil engineering project in history -- a 51-mile bridge and tunnel connecting the United States and Russia, physically and symbolically uniting East and West, to be built across the Bering Strait at a cost of over $200bn. Moon asserts that such projects will help connect the world as a single community, generate economic development, and redirect the focus of the world's leadership. The Universal Peace Federation promotes interreligious reconciliation, family renewal and cooperative service for others as the basis for lasting peace.

"Rev. Moon has been building bridges all his life to bring the races and religions of the world together. It is natural that he would now launch this visionary appeal to physically unite the world in a project that demands peaceful cooperation." -- Archbishop George Stallings, Christianity (Washington., D.C.)

"The man is hitting on all the spiritual hot buttons of contemporary society, including racial and interfaith relations, marriage and family, homosexuality, fighting AIDS, peace in the Middle East, and what is more, he's never pulled his punches." -- Rev. Darryl Gray, Imani Family Church, Montreal, Canada

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