U.N. chief appoints American to top political post

UNITED NATIONS -- Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon named an American ambassador to the top U.N. political post Friday as part of a long-awaited overhaul of senior U.N. posts to start shaping his new administration.

As part of the shakeup, he also gave key jobs to officials from the United States, China, Japan and Egypt.

The secretary-general, who took office on Jan. 1, decided to leave a number of senior U.N. officials in their jobs including Undersecretary-General for Peacekeeping Jean-Marie Guehenno of France, Legal Counsel Nicolas Michel of Switzerland, and security chief David Veness of Britain.

As predicted, Ban named the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, B. Lynn Pascoe, as undersecretary-general for political affairs. Pascoe, 63, a career diplomat who has served in Moscow, Hong Kong and Bangkok, as well as Beijing twice, has been ambassador in Jakarta since October 2004.

Some diplomats have questioned whether putting an American in such a sensitive post dealing with global hotspots especially in the Mideast will work -- because even though all U.N. staff pledge to support the world body, they still carry the weight of the politics in their home countries.

Pascoe will replace Ibrahim Gambari of Nigeria who visited Myanmar twice last year to appeal to the military government to release all political prisoners and institute democratic reforms. He was allowed rare meetings with meet pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest.

In other top appointments, Ban chose Kiyotaka Akasaka of Japan as undersecretary-general for public information. He replaces Shashi Tharoor of India, a candidate for secretary-general who came second to Ban, whose resignation was accepted.

Ban selected China's U.N. Ambassador in Geneva, Sha Zukang, to be undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, and he named Egyptian Ambassador Muhammad Shaaban as undersecretary-general for the General Assembly.

Ban has come under increasing criticism for the delay in appointing senior staff after asking for the resignation of more than 50 undersecretaries-general and assistant secretaries-general.

The new U.N. chief wanted the General Assembly to approve his plan to split the growing and overburdered peacekeeping department and move stymied global disarmament efforts into his office before making his senior appointments.

But developing countries refused to give speedy approval, insisting on more details. So Ban was forced to make Friday's appointments without knowing whether his peacekeeping and disarmament proposals will be approved. He accepted the resignation of Undersecretary-General for Disarmament Nobuaki Tanaka of Japan without naming a replacement.

His chief of staff, Vijay Nambiar, announced the appointments and departures at a press conference.

Nambiar said the secretary-general was instituting a new policy limiting senior staff to serving five-year terms.