Briton, Mexican appointed to top UN posts

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 3 (Reuters) Britain's ambassador to France, John Holmes, and a former UN chief of staff, Mexican Alicia Barcena, were named to top UN jobs today, a spokeswoman for UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced.

Holmes, a career diplomat who served as a private secretary to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his predecessor, John Major, was named undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, replacing Norwegian Jan Egeland, spokeswoman Michele Montas said.

Britain had originally proposed Holmes to head the UN political affairs department, now headed by Nigerian Ibrahim Gambari. But Ban, a South Korean, who took office on January 1, has not yet said who would fill that post.

Barcena, who became chief of staff for former Secretary-General Kofi Annan in June, will head the key post of administration and management, a job previously held by American Christopher Burnham.

A biologist and environmentalist, Barcena joined the United Nations in late 2005, having worked for the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean. Her expected appointment was reported by Reuters on Sunday.

The United States, UN sources said, was angling for the peacekeeping department, now headed by Undersecretary-General Jean-Marie Guehenno of France. That department may be broken in two so that an American citizen, possibly a general, can have one of the posts, with France keeping the other, they said.

Burnham launched a program to modernize UN financial operations and institute ethical practices and outside auditing bodies.

Egeland in 2003 was the first UN official to publicly focus attention to the disaster in Sudan's Darfur region and called it the world's greatest humanitarian disaster.

While Ban intends to make a fresh start, he is being pressured by key powers for control of major departments, as were his predecessors.

China is expected to get the department economic and social affairs, with the leading candidate, its ambassador the United Nations in Geneva, Sha Zukang.

Still not announced is the key post of deputy secretary-general, which Ban said would be a woman from the developing world.

Ban previously named Vijay Nambiar, a former Indian ambassador to several nations and advisor to Annan, as his chief of staff, and Montas, an award-winning Haitian broadcast journalist, to head his spokesman's division.

REUTERS PB BD2353