United Nations approves S Korea's Ban as leader

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 13 (Reuters) The UN General Assembly appointed South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-Moon by acclamation today as the next UN secretary-general, a post he will assume on January 1, 2007.

Ban, 62, is the first Asian leader since Burma's U Thant led the United Nations from 1961 to 1971. Asian nations had insisted it was their turn for the job to succeed Kofi Annan, a Ghanaian who has led the world body for the past decade.

The approval of Ban as the eighth secretary-general of the United Nations since 1946 was welcomed by applause from diplomats and hundreds of UN staff.

The 15-member UN Security Council recommended Ban to the General Assembly as the next secretary-general after he comfortably beat six rivals in informal council polls. The General Assembly formally appointed him for a five-year term.

''I will work diligently to materialize our responsibility to protect the most vulnerable members of humanity and for the peaceful resolution of threats to international security and regional stability,'' Ban told the Assembly.

''The true measure of success for the UN is not how much we promise, but how much we deliver for those who need us most,'' he said.

He said he was committed to reforming the United Nations, meeting U.N. Millennium Development Goals, expanding peace operations and dealing with threats posed by terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, HIV/AIDS and other pandemics, environmental degradation and the imperatives of human rights.

''We believe he is the right person to lead the United Nations at this decisive moment in its history, particularly as the UN struggles to fulfill the terms of the reform agenda that world leaders agreed to last fall,'' US Ambassador John Bolton told the Assembly.

'A TRULY GLOBAL MIND' Annan described Ban as ''a future secretary-general who is exceptionally attuned to the sensitivities of countries and constituencies in every continent.'' ''A man with a truly global mind at the helm of the world's only universal organization,'' he said, adding that he wished Ban strength and courage as he readied to take over the job and to ''have fun along the way.'' Born to a farming family in 1944 -- toward the end of the Japanese occupation of the Korean Peninsula -- Ban has moved inexorably up the ranks of the Foreign Ministry, which he joined in 1970 straight after university, where he graduated at the top of his class in international relations.

Ban -- who has been South Korea's foreign minister since January 2004 -- inherits a bureaucracy of 9,000 staff, a five billion dollars budget and more than 90,000 peacekeepers in 18 operations around the globe that cost another five billion dollars.

The low-key Ban will be a contrast to Annan, who in his first five years as secretary-general won a Nobel Peace Prize and was sometimes dubbed a diplomatic rock star, before financial scandals took over headlines in the past few years.

''His personal qualities combined with his diplomatic skills and the proven record of accomplishment in management and administration ... show that all member states will be in good hands,'' Japan's U.N. Ambassador Kenzo Oshima told the General Assembly.

REUTERS SRS PM0230