News & Politics - Ban named next U.N. secretary-general

Lexis · 10-13-2006, 01:36 PM

Quote:

The General Assembly adopted a resolution by acclamation Friday appointing South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to succeed
Kofi Annan as U.N. secretary-general.
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Ban, 62, will become the eighth U.N. secretary-general on Jan. 1, when Annan's second five-year term expires.

He was one of seven candidates vying to be the U.N. chief and topped all four informal polls in the
U.N. Security Council.

Hundreds of diplomats and U.N. staff in the chamber broke into loud applause when assembly president Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa asked the 192-nation world body to adopt the resolution by acclamation. She then banged the gavel and said, "It is so decided."

Ban will oversee an organization with 92,000 peacekeepers around the world and a $5 billion annual budget. The U.N.'s reputation has been tarnished by corruption scandals and its outdated practices need reform to meet the challenges of the 21st century.

Annan hailed Ban as "a future secretary-general who is exceptionally attuned to the sensitivities of countries and constituencies in every continent" and said he would be "a man with a truly global mind at the helm of the world's only universal organization."

Ban named next U.N. secretary-general - Yahoo! News

Let's hope he does a good job. I really think the UN has so much potential but is so often a paper tiger.

elisheva · 10-13-2006, 01:55 PM

The UN certainly has a lot of problems and needs major reforms - I hope he's able to handle some of those issues. I read a highly positive editorial (possibly from the Economist - it was reproduced in the Montreal Gazette) about him and his administrative abilities and his reputation as a peacemaker.

I wonder if he'll bring a new viewpoint concerning North Korea, given that he's South Korean?

**sum1** · 10-14-2006, 03:41 AM

I don't have much confidence in the UN or its secretary generals.

**TheAngel** · 10-14-2006, 05:18 AM

The UN is an organization that looks good on paper but is simply so large and so diluted that it's difficult to get something like that to work well and especially to work together because you have so many different opinions. I wonder how having a South Korean as head of the UN will work with the tensions in North Korea. But at the same time, I do wish the best.

**sum1** · 10-14-2006, 10:53 PM

Great, the next secretary general is going to have a name that sounds like what happens when you piss off a mod.

goodnightboy · 10-15-2006, 12:39 AM

Yeah, only that it's not pronounced the same way!

I think it's pronounced[ban] and not [bæn], if you take linguistics.

Anyhow, he's got his work cut out for him, I wish him all the best. Hopefully he'll make the UN more streamlined and more of a force (and less, as Lexis says, a paper tiger).


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