Portal:Asia/Featured biography/2

Ban Ki-moon was the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007 and ending his term in late 2016. Before going on to be 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. In the foreign ministry he established a reputation for modesty and competence. Ban was the Foreign Minister of the Republic of 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 of the countries that were members of the United Nations Security Council, a maneuver that turned him into the front runner. On 13 October 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly and officially succeeded Annan on 1 January 2007. Ban led several major reforms regarding peacekeeping and UN employment practices during his tenure. Diplomatically, Ban took particularly strong views on Darfur, where he helped persuade Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan; and on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with former U.S. President George W. Bush. Ban received strong criticism from OIOS, the UN internal audit unit, stating that the secretariat, under Ban's leadership, was "drifting into irrelevance".