U.S. Forces commander in Afghanistan, Mexico’s Attorney General to address AP’s annual meeting April 6

NEW YORK -- U.S. Army Gen. David McKiernan, the top military leader on the ground in Afghanistan, and Mexico’s Attorney General Eduardo Medina-Mora Icaza are scheduled to address The Associated Press annual meeting April 6 in San Diego, Calif. Their remarks to representatives of the not-for-profit news cooperative’s membership will be Webcast live.

The morning program will feature a live interview via satellite with Gen. McKiernan by AP Senior Managing Editor John Daniszewski and AP Kabul correspondent Jason Straziuso. McKiernan, commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, assumed leadership of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force last June.

Also part of the news program during the meeting will be a discussion about the U.S. economic stimulus by two AP journalists -- New York-based National Political Reporter Beth Fouhy and Washington, D.C.’s Jeannine Aversa of The Economy Team.

The annual meeting, to be held in the Randle Ballroom at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, will be hosted by Tom Curley, AP president and CEO, and Dean Singleton, chairman of the AP board of directors, starting at 10:45 a.m. Singleton and Curley will deliver reports to the AP membership.

The afternoon session is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., with Medina-Mora as the luncheon speaker. He has been Mexico’s top prosecutor since December 2006. Before being tapped as Attorney General by President Felipe Calderon, he served as Public Security Secretary from September 2005 through November 2006. Prior to that he was General Director of the National Security and Research Center (CISEN). He’s held a variety of other posts in the public and private sectors, including at the Mexico City-based DESC Group and as a lawyer at the firm of Medina-Mora and Associates. He is a member of the National Security Cabinet, the Public Security Cabinet and the Public Security Board.

Read more about Medina-Mora on the Mexican government Web site at http://www.presidencia.gob.mx/en/cabinet/?contenido=18381

Before his leading role in Afghanistan, McKiernan held a number of senior posts, including commander of U.S. Army Europe from December 2006 to May 2008. He has been on tours of duty around the world in his more than 36 years of military service, in the continental U.S., Europe, Korea and Southwest Asia. His assignments have included commanding the 3rd U.S. Army/Combined Forces Land Component Command from 2002 to 2004. In March 2003, he led all coalition and U.S. conventional ground forces whose mission was to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Read more about McKiernan on the NATO Web site at http://www.nato.int/isaf/structure/bio/comisaf/mckiernan.html

Access details for the Webcast will be posted, when they become available, on AP’s corporate Internet site at www.ap.org. See more details about the annual meeting at www.ap.org/annual09/ on the AP corporate Internet site.