US President George W Bush will meet next week with six world leaders, including the Malaysian prime minister, as well as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan on the margins of the United Nations general assembly.

On Monday, Bush will meet with Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, El Salvador's President Elias Antonio Saca, Honduras's President Manuel Zelaya Rosales, and Tanzania's President Jakaya Kikwete.

On Tuesday, Bush will meet with French President Jacques Chirac and then Annan before making a speech to the General Assembly about the global war on terrorism he declared after the September 11, 2001 terrorist strikes.

Later, he will meet with President Jalal Talabani of Iraq, where US troops have been battling a bloody insurgency and trying to prevent deadly sectarian violence from erupting into full civil war.

Conference on global literacy

Bush will begin his trip to New York on Monday with remarks at the White House's international conference on global literacy, hosted by US First Lady Laura Bush.

"We are very happy to have almost 34 first spouses; we have 30 education ministers, maybe more, coming to the New York Public Library" for the conference, said Laura Bush's chief of staff, Anita McBride.

More than 800 million people around the world are illiterate, with about 85 percent of them living in 34 of the poorest nations in the world, she told reporters.