Jordan’s ambassador to the United Nations, Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid Al-Hussein, has entered the race to become the next U.N. secretary-general, he said on Tuesday. Zeid becomes the fifth declared candidate to succeed Ghanaian Kofi Annan, who completes his second five-year term at the end of the year. Zeid’s nomination was submitted by Jordan’s government.
The other four candidates are Asians, and most U.N. members say it is Asia’s turn to lead the world body. Jordan is technically a member of the Asian group of countries at the United Nations. The other candidates so far are South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki Moon, Shashi Tharoor of India, the U.N. undersecretary-general for public information; Jayantha Dhanapala of Sri Lanka, a former U.N. disarmament official; and Surakiart Sathirathai, Thailand’s deputy prime minister. Source [Reuters]
This is great news and the Prince is well qualified, having earned his BA in Poli-Sci at Johns Hopkins and a PhD in history from Cambridge. He served as Jordan’s deputy permanent representative before his current posting there as the permanent representative. He is the current president was president of the Assembly of States Parties — the management oversight and legislative body of the International Criminal Court — and is a political affairs officer with UNPROFOR in the former Yugoslavia. [There’s more here in Arabic]
I wish him the best of luck. I can’t imagine how happy I will be if he succeeds! He will certainly put Jordan on the global map!
To Jareer, Notook, Hareega and anybody else who cares to see beyond the glamour…
I think if Prince Zeid makes as SG it would put Jordan in a very awkward position. As it is, we get too much flack over our stances re the region’s problems and to be placed smack in the middle of the spot light could be at the very least problematic. I’m sure you can all think of examples!
p.s. to all US taxpayers, the USA has NOT paid its dues to the UN for a very long time. That is partly why the UN is currently bankrupt.
Thank you for the correction. So do you think Clinton should have kept troops in Somalia?
How about sending troops to stablizie the unstable politics in some African countries?
interferred except in Somalia, which was a good step (Clinton was the president then)
Bush Sr. actually sent us into Somalia. It was Clinton who changed the scope of the operation while failing to apply the military force necessary for that scope, thus bungling it badly.
Bin Laden has stated that Clinton’s shameful withdrawal from Somalia was taken as a sign by al-Qaeda that the U.S. was averse to taking casualities and thus could be defeated relatively easily.
Just want to remind you that Sudan is an Arabic country and the Sudanese are Arabs, same as Somalia which very few Arabs care for, so it’s not all “IF you’re Arab we’ll care and if you’re we won’t”.
Besides, all ethnicites tend to support each other. African americans tend to sympathize with other african americans, latinos do the same, why can’t arabs or muslims do it?
Most Arab governments do not protect their people and most Arabs don’t like their government even if they thought they were doing the right thing, the reason being that these government were not selected by the people but by the dectators who rule most Arab countries. Don’t expect these leaders to help their people or other Arabs.
I gave Darfur just as an example to why Americans are not interferring, but there has been many civil wars and casulaities in Africa prior to the war on Iraq and America never interferred except in Somalia, which was a good step (Clinton was the president then) but only after a few casualities the troops went back home allowign for cahos and extrmists to take over Somalia as we see now. Why didn’t the US pull out the troops now even though 2600+ soldiers have been killed. Why is it ok to leave Somalia when the job is not completed but it’s not Ok to do so in Iraq?