MUMBAI: CNN marks its 25 anniversary with a special televised program Defining Moments: Stories that Touched Our Lives. The show will look back at events that have touched the lives of people around the world over the last quarter century.

The silver jubilee celebration will also be commemorating with a three-day conference of international journalists, world leaders and CNN executives, anchors and correspondents.

On 1 June at 6:30 CNN will Defining Moments: Stories that Touched Our Lives.

According to CNN release, from the unforgettable images of the recent South Asian Tsunami to that infamous night in Baghdad in 1991 when U.S. coalition bombs began to fall, CNN made its own mark in the history books while making the world a smaller place.

CNN International managing director Chris Cramer says, “As CNN celebrates 25 years of groundbreaking news coverage and technical innovation, we reminisce its illustrious history. It is a history that is shaped every day as CNN continues to stretch the boundaries of television reporting and expands, not just its services, but the ability to gather the news from the most remote parts of the world.”

The special one-hour program includes moments of courage against oppression and communism embodied by the eyewitness recollections of CNN veteran journalist Jim Clancy as he recalls the revolution of the Eastern Bloc and tales of a wall, that once divided the whole world, as it came falling down.

The channel had captured the haunting pictures in the hot spots of Bosnia and Rwanda; bringing crimes against humanity to light with CNN’s chief international correspondent Christiane Amanpour who recounts the ethnic rivalries in Kosovo as one of the Defining Moments: Stories that Touched Our Lives.

The programme will be hosted by CNN anchor Jonathan Mann. The show will highlight some ambitious endeavors and fatal flights with the explosions of the Challenger and the Colombia. The program also features images of reconciliation and conflict in the Middle East.

Broadcasting an unprecedented window to the world for the last 25 years, the Tsunami in 2004, the attacks on September 11, the tragic death of Princess Diana to the moments that mattered most, CNN was there.

As part of its 25th anniversary, CNN will also host the 2005 World Report Conference to be held in Atlanta from 30 May through 1 June. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Jim Clancy, Wolf Blitzer, Zain Verjee, Ralitsa Vassileva, Octavia Nasr, Michael Holmes and Anderson Cooper will join other international journalists and world leaders to discuss issues at the forefront of the news media today, informs the release.

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, Sri Lankan president Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunga, Pakistani chief executive general Pervez Musharraf, Iraqi president Jalal Talabani and Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono are among the international leaders who will join the conference either in person, via satellite or through a taped address. Musicians Bono and Ricky Martin and author Deepak Chopra will also participate in the conference.