New Secretary-General to Fill 2 U.N. Posts This Week, Could Bring Controversy
By Liza Porteus
FoxNews.com
January 3, 2007
NEW YORK — New Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to announce his picks for two of the top posts vacant at the United Nations this week, a spokeswoman said Tuesday — and one of those choices could be controversial.
Ban, the former foreign minister of South Korea who started his new job Tuesday, will soon make public his choices for under-secretary-general for administration and management and the head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The administration and management job traditionally has gone to an American, but this time, it could be different.
Press reports over the weekend indicated that Ban might choose Alicia Barcena of Mexico to head up the administration and management office, but that report has not been confirmed. Barcena is the former chief of staff of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who left that position late last year, making way for Ban.
The appointment of a non-American to the job would be a "disaster" for the U.S.-led effort to reform the U.N., according to one U.N. official. . .
. . .Barcena also is a onetime protégé of Maurice Strong, the former special adviser to Annan who resigned his last U.N. post after it was revealed he had received about $1 million for a family-owned firm that originally came from Saddam Hussein and had ties to the Oil-for-Food scandal. She also has ties to outgoing Deputy Secretary-General Mark Malloch Brown.
Click here for full story.
Senator Tom Coburn
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2254 Fax: 202-228-3796
|
|