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Ban Ki-Moon
Ban Ki-Moon, (born June 13, 1944, Ŭmsŏng, Japanese-occupied Korea [now in South Korea]), South Korean diplomat and politician, who served as the eighth secretary-general (2007–16) of the United Nations (UN).
At age 18 Ban won a competition that took him to the White House to meet U.S. Pres. John F. Kennedy, a visit that Ban claimed inspired his public career. He received a bachelor’s degree (1970) in international relations from Seoul National University and earned a master’s degree (1985) from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. After entering South Korea’s foreign service in 1970, he served as counselor to the embassy in Washington, D.C. (1987–90), director of American affairs at the Foreign Ministry (1990–92), deputy foreign minister (1995–96), and national security adviser to the president (1996–98). Following a stint as ambassador to Austria (1998–2000), Ban returned to Seoul as vice-minister of foreign affairs (2000–01). In 2003 he became foreign policy adviser to the new president, Roh Moo Hyun. As minister of foreign affairs and trade from 2004 to 2006, Ban played a key role in the six-party talks aimed at denuclearizing North Korea.
Ban’s UN experience began in 1975 when he became a staff member of the UN division of the Foreign Ministry in Seoul. In the late 1970s, when South Korea had only observer status, Ban was posted to the South Korean mission to the UN. In 1999 he served as chairman of the preparatory commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization. Ban also led the cabinet of the president of the UN General Assembly during South Korea’s tenure of the rotating presidency in 2001–02, the critical period following the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11, 2001 (see September 11 attacks).
On October 13, 2006, just days after North Korea tested a nuclear weapon, Ban was named UN secretary-general-elect. Though Ban’s quiet demeanour led some observers to question his ability to take on the daunting challenges facing the UN, others characterized him as an astute consensus builder who would be able to work effectively with both the Americans and the Chinese. Ban succeeded Kofi Annan on January 1, 2007, becoming the first Asian to serve as UN secretary-general since Burmese statesman U Thant held the office (1962–71). Ban faced a number of challenges, including the North Korean and Iranian nuclear threats, troubles in the Middle East, and the humanitarian crisis in the Darfur region of Sudan. Reform of the UN itself was also a major issue. In 2011 Ban was elected to a second term.
His second term saw Ban deal with a number of crises, particularly in the Middle East, such as the Syrian Civil War and fallout from the various movements of the Arab Spring. In addition, he had to cope with the international turmoil over Russia’s forcible annexation of the Ukrainian autonomous republic of Crimea in 2014. The responses that the UN made to those crises were often criticized as being too slow or ineffectual, and his second term as secretary-general was widely perceived as having been far less successful than his first when it ended on December 31, 2016.
Ban Ki-moon (/bæn/; Korean: 반기문; Hanja: 潘基文; Korean pronunciation: [pan.ɡi.mun]; born 13 June 1944) is a South Korean politician and diplomat who was the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 2007 to December 2016 and succeded by Antonio Guterres. Before becoming Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he graduated from university, accepting his first post in New Delhi, India.Ban was the foreign minister of South Korea from January 2004 to November 2006. In February 2006 he began to campaign for the office of Secretary-General. Ban was initially considered to be a long shot for the office. As foreign minister of South Korea, however, he was able to travel to all the countries on the United Nations Security Council, a maneuver that turned him into the campaign's front runner.
On 13 October 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly. On 1 January 2007, he succeeded Kofi Annan. As Secretary-General, he was responsible for several major reforms on peacekeeping and UN employment practices. Diplomatically, Ban has taken particularly strong views on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with U.S. President George W. Bush, and on the Darfur conflict, where he helped persuade Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan.[3][4]
Ban was named the world's 32nd most powerful person by the Forbes list of The World's Most Powerful People in 2013, the highest among South Koreans.[5] In 2014, he was named the third most powerful South Korean after Lee Kun-hee and Lee Jae-yong.[6] In 2016, Foreign Policy named Ban one of the Top 100 Global Thinkers for his achievement of making the Paris Agreement a legally binding treaty less than a year after it was adopted.[7]
António Guterres was appointed by the General Assembly on 13 October 2016 to be the successor of Ban Ki-moon as he stepped down on 31 December 2016.[8] He was widely considered to be a potential candidate for the 2017 South Korean presidential election,[9] before announcing, on 1 February, that he would not be running.[10]
On 14 September 2017, Ban was elected chair of the International Olympic Committee's Ethics Commission.[11] Also in 2017, Ban co-founded the nonprofit Ban Ki-moon Centre for Global Citizens. He also currently serves as Distinguished Chair Professor at Yonsei University's Institute for Global Engagement and Empowerment.[12]
He became the first major international diplomat to throw his weight behind the so-called Green New Deal, a nascent effort by members of the Democratic Party in the United States to zero out planet-warming emissions and end poverty over the next decade.[13]
Early life and education
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Ban was born on 13 June 1944 in the small farming village of Haengchi, Wonnam Township (-myeon), in Eumseong County, North Chungcheong Province in Korea.[2][14] His family then moved to the nearby town of Chungju, where he grew up.[15] During Ban's childhood, his father had a warehouse business, but the warehouse went bankrupt and the family lost its middle-class standard of living. When Ban was six, his family fled to a remote mountainside for much of the Korean War.[14] After the war ended, his family returned to Chungju. Ban has said that, during this time, he met American soldiers.[16]
In secondary school (Chungju High School), Ban became a star student, particularly in his studies of the English language. In 1962, Ban won an essay contest sponsored by the Red Cross and earned a trip to the United States where he lived in San Francisco with a host family for several months.[17] As part of the trip, Ban met U.S. President John F. Kennedy.[14] When a journalist at the meeting asked Ban what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, "I want to become a diplomat."[16]
He received a 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.[16] At Harvard, he studied under Joseph Nye, who remarked that Ban had "a rare combination of analytic clarity, humility and perseverance".[17] Ban was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) by the University of Malta on 22 April 2009.[18] He further received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Washington in October 2009,[19] an honorary degree of Doctor of Law from the University of Cambridge in February 2016,[20] and an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters Degree from Loyola Marymount University in April 2016.[21] On 30 August 2016, he was conferred the Honorary Doctor of Letters by National University of Singapore for his lifetime of service to humanity.[22]