Oh great. Another one.
Ban Ki-moon (IPA pronunciation: [bɑn gi mun]; born June 13, 1944 in Eumseong, Korea) is a South Korean politician and the Secretary General-elect of the United Nations. He will succeed Kofi Annan as Secretary-General on January 1, 2007.[1]
Ki-moon was the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea (South Korea) from January 2004 to November 1, 2006. On October 13, 2006, he was elected to be the next Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly. On December 14, 2006, he was sworn in as the eight Secretary-General. Contents [hide]
* 1 Education * 2 Personal * 3 Career * 4 UN Secretary-General candidacy * 5 Criticism * 6 Awards * 7 References * 8 External links
[edit] Education
Ban received his bachelor's degree in International Relations from Seoul National University in 1970 and earned a Master of Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1985.
[edit] Personal
Ban is married and has a son and two daughters.[2] In addition to his native Korean, Ban is fluent in English and French.
He identifies himself as a non-denominational Christian. He is member of the "Nonchurch Movement" (Mugyohoe),[3] a movement founded by Uchimura Kanzo which spread to Korea in the 1920s. Its members, mostly intellectuals, make the Gospel a source of inspiration for their private and public life.[4]
As a high school student in the early 1960s, Ban met U.S. President John F. Kennedy in Washington, D.C. after winning an English language competition organized by the American Red Cross. He has said that it was after this meeting that he resolved to become a diplomat.
Career
Ban joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 1970 and worked his way up during the years of the Yusin Constitution.
His first overseas posting was to New Delhi, after which he worked in the United Nations Division at the foreign ministry's headquarters. At the time of Park Chung Hee's assassination, Ban had climbed to the position of First Secretary at South Korea's Permanent Observer Mission to the UN in New York City (South Korea only became a full UN member state on September 17, 1991). He subsequently assumed the post of Director of the United Nations Division. He has been posted twice to the Republic of Korea (ROK) Embassy in Washington, D.C. Between these two assignments he served as Director-General for American Affairs in 1990–1992. He was promoted to the position of Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations in 1995. He was then appointed National Security Advisor to the President in 1996, and assumed the office of Vice Minister in 2000. His most recent post was as Foreign Policy Advisor to the President Noh Moo-hyun.
While serving as Ambassador to Austria, Ban was elected as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom) in 1999. During the ROK's Presidency of the 56th Session of the United Nations General Assembly (GA) in 2001, he worked as Chef de Cabinet of the President of the GA.
Ban has been actively involved in issues relating to inter-Korean relationships. In 1992, he served as Vice Chairman of the South-North Joint Nuclear Control Commission, following the adoption by South and North Korea of the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. In September 2005, as Foreign Minister, he played a leading role in the diplomatic efforts to adopt the Joint Statement on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue at the Fourth Round of the Six-Party Talks held in Beijing.
[edit] UN Secretary-General candidacy
In February 2006, Ban declared his candidacy to replace Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General at the end of 2006, becoming the first South Korean to run for Secretary-General.[5] He topped each of the four straw polls conducted by the UN Security Council on July 24,[6] 14 September,[7] September 28[8] and October 2. [9]
In the October 2 informal poll, Ban received fourteen favorable votes and one "no opinion" from the fifteen members of the Security Council; the Japanese delegation the only nation not in full agreement. More importantly, Ban was the only one to escape a veto, while each of the five other candidates received at least one "no" vote from the five permanent members of the council — People's Republic of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States.[10] After the vote, Shashi Tharoor, who finished second, withdrew his candidacy[11] and China's Permanent Representative to the UN told reporters that "it is quite clear from today's straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly."[12]
Criticism
As the election of the successor to the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan drew closer there was rising criticism of the South Korean campaign on Ban's behalf. Specifically, his alleged practice[citation needed] of systematically visiting all member states of the UN Security Council in his role as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to secure votes in his support by signing trade deals with European countries and pledging foreign aid to developing countries were the focus of some news articles.[13][14]
According to the Washington Post, "rivals have privately grumbled that Republic of Korea, which has the world's 11th-largest economy, has wielded its economic might to generate support for his candidacy". Ban reportedly has said that these insinuations are "groundless". In an interview on 17 September 2006 he reportedly stated: "As front-runner, I know that I can become a target of this very scrutinizing process" and "I am a man of integrity."[15]
Although not directly a criticism of Ban Ki-Moon, there has also been concern[citation needed] over the appointment of Kang Kyung-wha, Ban's campaign manager, as Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, an assistant secretary-general-level position, with only weeks left in Kofi Annan's term.[16]
Within Korea, Ban’s nickname is Ban-chusa, which may be loosely translated as “administrative clerk.” This appellation is used by Ban’s supporters and opponents alike, but the latter intend to hint at a “lack of charisma and a supposed willingness to bend to the will of his superiors,” as well as his personality, which they perceive to be uninspiring. [17]
[edit] Awards
Ban has twice been awarded the Order of Service Merit in 1975 and 1986 by the Government of the Republic of Korea. For his accomplishments as an envoy, he received the Grand Decoration of Honour from the Republic of Austria in 2001. A year later, the government of Brazil bestowed the Grand Cross of Rio Branco upon him.
In September 2005, the Korea Society in New York honoured him with the James A. Van Fleet Award for his contributions to friendship between the United States and the Republic of Korea.[18]
Happy Days are Here Again.
BFD...They should still turn the building into a homeless shelter and move the "diplomats" to some deserted island off the coast of Northern Africa. Let them try and get dinner reservations at our governments expense and park their camels in a terror zone and not be ticketed!!
Here's a tidbit on Mugyohoe, the Nonchurch. This should cause a bit of an uproar here:
"Another blistering critique of evangelist-fundamentalist stances was presented by Kim Kyo-sin (1901-1945), the leader of the so-called Non-Church Christian Movement (mugyohoe undong) that had begun in 1927 as an indigenous, voluntary religious movement to controvert the ways of the established Protestant denominational churches. Searching for an indigenous theology and authentic, informal Bible-centered faith community, the new movement severely criticized the narrow sacerdotal principle of extra ecclesiam nulla salus that held that salvation is not available apart from membership in a specific denominational church that controls the distribution of grace. It also criticized that the churchgoers had gone astray from the authentic Christian way and that the hierarchically oriented and authoritarian clergy had sold out to American missionaries and their whitewashed ecclesiasticism to safeguard their vested interests.
"The original leaders of this movement were the disciples of Uchimura Kanzō (1861-1930), the founder of Japanese Non-Church Christianity; and like their Japanese mentor, they all emphasized the intensive study of the Bible rather than mindlessly following the ecclesiastical doctrines, rituals and duties of the church. They were all well educated and were skeptical of the uninhibited, Pentecostal, emotional expressions of religious feelings of the evangelist-fundamentalists. Unlike the blessings-bound religion of non-privileged classes, theirs was a religious movement of virtuosi or intellectuals to attain grace through autonomous and rational ethical achievement based on a particular belief in a transcendental God. Deliberately shunning the ecstasy and the emotional piety of the lower classes, they held on to an intellectual religious attitude that takes the ethical and social requirements of everyday life more seriously."
You can read more at
http://www.gwu.edu/~eall/special/Chung-paper-HMS2000-GW.htm
Another Irish guy :-)
Oh great. Another one.