George W. Bush

George Walker Bush (IPA: /???? ?w??k?? b??/; born July 6, 1946) is the forty-third and current President of the United States of America. He previously served as the forty-sixth Governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000 and is the eldest son of former United States President George Herbert Walker Bush. He was inaugurated as President on January 20, 2001 and his current term is scheduled to end at noon on January 20, 2009.[4]

After graduating from college, Bush worked in his family's oil businesses. In 1978, he made an unsuccessful run for the U.S. House of Representatives. He later co-owned the Texas Rangers baseball team before returning to politics in a campaign for Governor of Texas. He defeated Ann Richards and was elected Governor of Texas in 1994. Bush was elected to the Presidency in 2000 as the Republican candidate in a close and controversial contest, in which he lost the nationwide popular vote, but won the electoral vote.

President Bush signed into law a $1.35 trillion tax cut program in 2001,[5] and in 2002 the No Child Left Behind Act. In October 2001, after the attacks on September 11, 2001, Bush announced a global War on Terrorism and ordered an invasion of Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban, destroy Al-Qaeda, and to capture Osama bin Laden. In March 2003, Bush ordered the invasion of Iraq, asserting that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction and that the war was necessary for the protection of the United States.[6]

Running in the midst of the Iraq War,[7] Bush was re-elected on November 2, 2004;[8] his presidential campaign against Senator John Kerry was successful despite controversy over Bush's execution of the Iraq War and domestic issues.[9] After his re-election, Bush received increasingly heated criticism. During his term he has had both the highest and among the lowest domestic approval ratings of any President in history. His approval rating has ranged from around 90 percent immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks, to 30% or lower in early 2008.[10

Dag Hammarskjöld was born in Jönköping, although he lived most of his childhood in Uppsala. He was the fourth and youngest son of Hjalmar Hammarskjöld, Prime Minister of Sweden (1914–1917), and Agnes Almquist. His ancestors had served the Swedish Crown since the 17th century. He studied at Uppsala University where he graduated with a Master's degree in political economy and a Bachelor of Law degree. He then moved to Stockholm.

From 1930 to 1934, he was a secretary of a governmental committee on unemployment. He also wrote his economics thesis Konjunkturspridningen (The Spread of the Business Cycle) and received his Doctorate from Stockholm University in 1933. In 1936, Hammarskjöld became a secretary in the Bank of Sweden and soon he was an undersecretary of finance. From 1941 to 1948, he served as a chairman of the Bank of Sweden.

Early in 1945, he was appointed as adviser to the cabinet on financial and economic problems, and coordinated government plans to alleviate the economic problems of the post-war period.

In 1947, Hammarskjöld was appointed to Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and in 1949 he became the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He was a delegate in the Paris conference that established the Marshall Plan. In 1948, he was again in Paris to attend conference for the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation. In 1950, he became a head of Sweden delegation to UNISCAN. In 1951, he became a cabinet minister without portfolio and in effect Deputy Foreign Minister. Although Hammarskjöld served with a cabinet dominated by the Social Democrats, he never officially joined any political party. On December 20, 1954, he was elected to take his father's vacated seat in the Swedish Academy. In 1951, Hammarskjöld became vice chairman of the Swedish delegation to the United Nations General Assembly in Paris. He became the chairman of the Swedish delegation to the General Assembly in New York in 1952.

UN Secretary General

When Trygve Lie resigned from his post as UN Secretary General in 1953, the Security Council decided to recommend Hammarskjöld to the post. It came as a surprise to him. He was selected on March 31 with the majority of 10 out of eleven states. The UN General Assembly elected him in the April 7–10 session, by 57 votes out of 60. In 1957, he was re-elected.

Hammarskjöld started his term by establishing his own secretariat of 4,000 administrators. He set up regulations that defined their responsibilities. He insisted that the secretary-general be able to take emergency action without the prior approval of either the Security Council or General Assembly.

During his term, Hammarskjöld tried to soothe relations between Israel and the Arab states. In 1955, he went to mainland China to negotiate the release of 15 US pilots who had served in the Korean War and been captured by the Chinese. In 1956, he established the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF). In 1957, he intervened in the Suez Crisis.

In 1960, the former Belgian colony and now newly-independent Congo asked for UN aid in defusing the escalating civil strife. (See Congo Crisis). Hammarskjöld made four trips to the Congo. His efforts towards the decolonisation of Africa were considered insufficient by the USSR; in September 1960, they denounced his decision to send a UN emergency force to keep the peace. They demanded his resignation, and the replacement of the office of secretary-general by a three-man directorate with a built-in veto, the “troika”. The objective was, citing the memoirs of the Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, to “equally represent interests of three groups of countries: capitalist, socialist and recently independent.”[2] Hammarskjöld denied Patrice Lumumba's request to help force Katanga to rejoin the Congo, causing Lumumba to turn to the Soviets for help

Death

In September 1961, Hammarskjöld found out about the fighting between non-combatant UN forces and Katanga troops of Moise Tshombe. He was en route to negotiate a cease-fire on the night of September 17-18 when his DC-6B plane (SE-BDY) crashed near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). The crew had filed no flight plan (for security reasons), and a decoy aircraft went (via a different route) ahead of Hammarskjöld's aircraft. He and fifteen others perished.


[edit] Official inquiry
Following the death of Hammarskjöld, Nepalese diplomat Rishikesh Shaha was elected by the UN General Assembly to head an inquiry into the death of Hammarskjöld.[3]

The explanation of investigators at the time is that Hammarskjöld's aircraft descended too low on its approach to Ndola's airport in clear weather at night. No evidence of a bomb, surface-to-air missile, or hijacking has ever been presented, even though, following the crash, 180 men searched a six square kilometre area of the last sector of the aircraft's flightpath, looking for such evidence. Neither was any evidence of foul play found in the wreckage of the aircraft. The sole survivor, one of three bodyguards on board, recalled nothing that would indicate anything other than a controlled flight into terrain crash in the interviews he gave before he died of his injuries.[4]


[edit] Conspiracy theories
On August 19, 1998, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, chairman of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), stated that recently-uncovered letters had implicated British MI5, American CIA and South African intelligence services in the crash. One TRC letter said that a bomb in the aircraft's wheel-bay was set to detonate when the wheels came down for landing. Tutu said that the veracity of the letters was unclear; the British Foreign Office suggested that they may have been created as Soviet misinformation.[5]

On July 29, 2005, 100 years after Hammarskjöld's birth, the Norwegian Major General, Bjørn Egge, gave an interview to the newspaper Aftenposten on the events surrounding his death. According to Egge, who was the first UN officer to see the body, Hammarskjöld had a hole in his forehead, and this hole was subsequently airbrushed from photos taken of the body. It appeared to Egge that Hammarskjöld had been thrown from the plane, and grass and leaves in his hands might indicate that he survived the crash, and had tried to scramble away from the wreckage. Egge does not claim directly that the wound was a gunshot wound, and his statement does not align with Archbishop Tutu's information or with the findings of the official inquiry.[6] In an interview on March 24, 2007 on the Norwegian TV channel NRK, an anonymous retired mercenary claimed to have shared a room with an unnamed South African mercenary who claimed to have shot Hammarskjöld. The alleged killer was claimed to have died in the late 1990s. [7]

[edit] Early life and family life
The son of Sydney Jebb, of Firbeck Hall, Yorkshire, Jebb was educated at Eton College, then Magdalen College, Oxford, gaining a first in History. In 1929 he married Cynthia Noble, with whom he had one son and two daughters, Miles, Vanessa, married to the historian Hugh Thomas, and Stella, married to the scientist Joel de Rosnay.


[edit] Diplomatic career
Jebb entered the Foreign Service in 1924, served in Tehran, where he became known to Harold Nicolson and to Vita Sackville-West and in Rome, as well as at the Foreign Office in London where, amongst other positions, he served as the Private Secretary to the Head of the Diplomatic Service.


[edit] World War II
In August 1940, Jebb was appointed to the Ministry of Economic Warfare with temporary rank of Assistant Under-Secretary. In 1942 he was appointed Head of the Reconstruction Department and in 1943 was made a Counsellor within the Foreign Office. In this capacity he attended numerous international conferences, including those at Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam.


[edit] Acting UN Secretary-General
After World War II, he served as Executive Secretary of the Preparatory Commission of the United Nations in August 1945, being appointed Acting United Nations Secretary-General from October 1945 to February 1946 until the appointment of the first Secretary-General Trygve Lie.


[edit] Ambassador
Returning to London, Jebb served as Deputy to the Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin at the Conference of Foreign Ministers before serving as the Foreign Office's United Nations Adviser (1946-47). He represented the United Kingdom at the Brussels Treaty Permanent Commission with personal rank of Ambassador. He became the United Kingdom's Ambassador to the United Nations from 1950-1954 and to Paris from 1954-1960.


[edit] Political career
In 1960 Jebb was made a hereditary peer and as Baron Gladwyn became involved in politics as a member of the Liberal Party. He was Deputy Leader of the Liberals in the House of Lords 1965-1988 and spokesman on foreign affairs and defence. An ardent European, he served as a Member of the European Parliament 1973-1976 where he was also the Vice-President of the Parliament's Political Committee. He unsuccessfully contested the Suffolk seat in the European Parliament in 1979.

When asked why he had joined the Liberal party in the early 1960s, he replied that the Liberals were a party without a general and that he was a general without a party. Like many Liberals, he passionately believed that education was the key to social reform.

U Thant , who served as Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1961 to 1971, was chosen to head the world body when Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold was killed in an air crash in September 1961.

U Thant was born at Pantanaw, Burma, on 22 January 1909, and was educated at the National High School in Pantanaw and at University College, Rangoon.

Prior to his diplomatic career, U Thant's experience was in education and information work. He served as Senior Master at the National High School, which he had attended in Pantanaw, and in 1931, he became Headmaster after winning first place in the Anglo-Vernacular Secondary Teachership Examination.

He was a member of Burma's Textbook Committee and of the Council of National Education before World War II, and was an Executive Committee member of the Heads of Schools Association. He was also active as a free-lance journalist.

In 1942, U Thant served for a few months as Secretary of Burma's Education Reorganization Committee. In the following year, he returned to the National High School as Headmaster for another four years.

U Thant was appointed Press Director of the Government of Burma in 1947. In 1948, he became Director of Broadcasting, and in the following year, he was appointed Secretary to the Government of Burma in the Ministry of Information. In 1953, U Thant became Secretary for projects in the Office of the Prime Minister, and in 1955, he was assigned additional duties as Executive Secretary of Burma's Economic and Social Board.

At the time of his appointment as Acting Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant had been Permanent Representative of Burma to the United Nations, with the rank of Ambassador (1957-1961).

During that period, he headed the Burmese delegations to the sessions of the General Assembly, and in 1959, he served as one of the Vice-Presidents of the Assembly's fourteenth session. In 1961, U Thant was Chairman of the United Nations Congo Conciliation Commission and Chairman of the Committee on a United Nations Capital Development Fund.

During his diplomatic career, U Thant served on several occasions as Adviser to Prime Ministers of Burma.

U Thant began serving as Acting Secretary-General since 3 November 1961, when he was unanimously appointed by the General Assembly, on the recommendation of the Security Council, to fill the unexpired term of the late Secretary-General, Dag Hammarskjold. He was then unanimously appointed Secretary-General by the General Assembly on 30 November 1962 for a term of office ending on 3 November 1966.

U Thant was re-appointed for a second term as Secretary-General of the United Nations by the General Assembly on 2 December 1966 on the unanimous recommendation of the Security Council (resolution 229, 1966). His term of office continued until 31 December 1971.

U Thant received honorary degrees (LL.D) from the following universities: Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada (25 May 1962); Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts (10 June 1962); Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey (12 June 1962); Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts (2 June 1963); Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts (13 June 1963); Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire (16 June 1963); University of California at Berkeley, California (2 April 1964); University of Denver, Denver, Colorado (3 April 1964); Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania (8 June 1964); New York University, New York (10 June 1964); Moscow University, Moscow, Soviet Union (30 July 1964); Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario (22 May 1965); Colby College, Waterville, Maine (6 June 1965); Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut (14 June 1965); University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada (28 May 1966); Hamilton College, Clinton, New York (5 June 1966); Fordham University, Bronx, New York (8 June 1966); Manhattan College, New York (14 June 1966); University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan (30 March 1967); Delhi University, New Delhi, India (13 April 1967); University of Leeds, England (26 May 1967); Louvain University, Brussels, Belgium (10 April 1968); University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada (13 May 1968); Boston Unversity, Boston, Massachusetts (19 May 1968); Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey (29 May 1968); University of Dublin (Trinity College), Dublin, Ireland (12 July 1968); Laval University, Quebec, Canada (31 May 1969); Columbia University, New York City (3 June 1969); the University of the Philippines (11 April 1970); and Syracuse University (6 June 1970). He also received the following honorary degrees: Doctor of Divinity, The First Universal Church (11 May 1970); Doctor of International Law, Florida International University, Miami, Florida (25 January 1971); Doctor of Laws, University of Hartford, Hartford, Connecticut (23 March 1971); Doctor of Civil Laws degree, honoris causa, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York, (30 May 1971); Doctor of Humane Letters, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina (7 June 1971).

U Thant retired at the end of his second term in 1971 and he died on 25 November 1974 after a long illness. He was 65 years old.

** Formerly known as Burma.

Kurt Waldheim was appointed Secretary-General of the United Nations for a five-year term beginning on 1 January 1972. The Security Council had recommended the appointment on 21 December 1971 and the General Assembly approved it by acclamation on the following day.

The Secretary-General was born at Sankt Andra-Wordern, near Vienna, Austria, on 21 December 1918. He graduated from the University of Vienna as a Doctor of Jurisprudence in 1944. He is also a graduate of the Vienna Consular Academy.

Mr. Waldheim joined the Austrian diplomatic service in 1945, and from 1948 to 1951 he served as First Secretary of the Legation in Paris. He was head of the personnel department of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Vienna from 1951 to 1955 In 1955 he was appointed Permanent Observer for Austria to the United Nations and later that year became head of the Austrian Mission when Austria was admitted to the Organization.

From 1956 to 1960, Mr. Waldheim represented Austria in Canada, first as Minister Plenipotentiary and later as Ambassador. From 1960 to 1962 he was head of the Political Department (West) in the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, subsequently becoming Director-General for Political Affairs until June 1964.

From 1964 to 1968, Mr. Waldheim was Permanent Representative of Austria to the United Nations. During that period he was Chairman of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space; in 1968 he was elected President of the first United Nations Conference on the Exploration and Peaceful Uses of Outer Space.

From January 1968 to April 1970, Mr. Waldheim was Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Austria. After leaving the Government, he was unanimously elected Chairman of the Safeguards Committee of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and in October 1970 he again became the Austrian Permanent Representative to the United Nations, a post he held until he was elected Secretary-General of the Organization.

In April 1971, he was one of the two candidates for the Federal Presidency of Austria.

During his first three years as Secretary-General, Mr. Waldheim made it a practice to visit areas of special concern to the United Nations. In March 1972 he travelled to South Africa and Namibia in pursuance of a mandate given him by the Security Council in order to assist in finding a satisfactory solution for the problem of Namibia.

The Secretary-General paid three visits to Cyprus, in June 1972, August 1973 and August 1974, for discussions with government leaders and to inspect the United Nations Peace-keeping Force in the island. During his visit in August 1974, in the wake of the hostilities, Mr. Waldheim arranged for talks to begin between Acting President Glafcos Clerides and Rauf Denktash.

The Secretary-General also made a number of trips to the Middle East in the continuing search for peace in the area. In August 1973 he visited Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Egypt and Jordan; in June 1974 he met with the leaders of Lebanon, Syria, Israel, Jordan and Egypt; and in November 1974 he went to Syria, Israel and Egypt in connection with the extension of the mandate of United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF). On these visits he also inspected the United Nations peace-keeping operations in the area - the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) and UNDOF.

In February 1973, during an official trip to the subcontinent, the Secretary-General discussed with the Governments of India,Pakistan and Bangladesh the problems created by the war between India and Pakistan and ways and means to overcome its consequences. He also inspected the United Nations Relief Operation in Bangladesh, the largest relief operation ever undertaken under United Nations auspices.

In February and March 1974, the Secretary-General visited a number of countries in the Sudano-Sahelian area of Africa where the United Nations had undertaken a major relief operation to assist the victims of a prolonged drought.

The Secretary-General also opened and addressed a number of major international conferences convened under United Nations auspices. These include the third session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Santiago, April 1972), the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment (Stockholm, June 1972), the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (Caracas, June 1974), the World Population Conference (Bucharest, August 1974) and the World Food Conference (Rome, November 1974).

The Secretary-General participated in Security Council meetings held away from Headquarters, in Africa (Addis Ababa, January 1972) and in Latin America (Panama, March 1973).

He addressed and attended meetings of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Rabat (June 1972 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the OAU, in Addis Ababa (May 1973) and in Mogadiscio (June 1974). He also addressed the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington (March 1972).

In February 1973, the Secretary-General took part in the Paris International Conference on Viet-Nam; in December of the same year he presided over the first phase of the Geneva Peace Conference on the Middle East.

In July 1973, Mr. Waldheim addressed the Conference on European Security and Co-operation in Helsinki.

On the invitation of their respective Governments, the Secretary-General paid official visits to a number of countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Europe.

Married and the father of three children, Mr. Waldheim is the author of a work on Austria's foreign policy, The Austrian Example, which has been published in German,English and French.

Mr. Waldheim died on 14 June 2007 in Vienna, Austria, at the age of 88.

Javier Perez de Cuellar assumed office as Secretary-General of the United Nations on 1 January 1982. On 10 October 1986, he was appointed for a second term of office, which began on 1 January 1987.

Mr. Perez de Cuellar was born in Lima, Peru, on 19 January 1920. He is a lawyer and a career diplomat, now retired.

He joined the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1940 and the diplomatic service in 1944, serving subsequently as Secretary at the Peruvian embassies in France, the United Kingdom, Bolivia and Brazil, and as Counsellor and Minister Counsellor at the embassy in Brazil.

Having returned to Lima in 1961, he was promoted to the rank of Ambassador the following year, successively occupying the posts of Director of the Legal Department, Director of Administration, Director of Protocol and Director of Political Affairs. In 1966, he was appointed Secretary-General (Deputy Minister) for Foreign Affairs. In 1981, he served as Legal Adviser in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Mr. Perez de Cuellar was Ambassador of Peru to Switzerland, the Soviet Union, Poland and Venezuela.

He was a member of the Peruvian delegation to the General Assembly at its first session in 1946 and a member of the delegations to the twenty-fifth to thirtieth sessions of the Assembly. In 1971, he was appointed Permanent Representative of Peru to the United Nations, and he led his country's delegation to all sessions of the Assembly from then until 1975.

In 1973 and 1974, he represented his country in the Security Council, serving as President of the Council at the time of the events in Cyprus in July 1974. On 18 September 1975, he was appointed Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Cyprus, a post he held until December 1977, when he rejoined his Foreign Service.

On 27 February 1979, he was appointed as United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Special Political Affairs. From April 1981, while still holding this post, he acted as the Secretary-General's Personal Representative on the situation relating to Afghanistan. In that capacity, he visited Pakistan and Afghanistan in April and August of that year in order to continue the negotiations initiated by the Secretary-General some months earlier.

In May 1981, he again rejoined his country's Ministry of Foreign Affairs but continued to represent the Secretary-General in the context of the situation relating to Afghanistan until his appointment in December of that year as Secretary-General of the United Nations.

He also served as Professor of International Law at Peru's Academia Diplomatica and Professor of International Relations at Peru's Academia de Guerra Aerea. He is the author of Manual de Derecho Diplomatico (Manual of Diplomatic Law (1964).

Mr. Perez de Cuellar received doctorate degrees honoris causa from the following universities: the University of Nice; the Jagiellonian University at Cracow; Charles University at Prague; the University of Sofia; the University of San Marcos at Lima; the Free University at Brussels; Carleton University at Ottawa, Canada; the University of Paris (Sorbonne); the University of Visva-Bharati in West Bengal, India; the University of Michigan; the University of Osnabruck in the Federal Republic of Germany; the Coimbra University at Coimbra, Portugal; the Mongolian State University at Ulan Bator; the Humboldt University of Berlin; the Moscow State University; the University of Malta in Valleta; the Leyden University in the Netherlands; La Salle University in Philadelphia; Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts; the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland; and Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

In the course of his career, Mr. Perez de Cuellar was decorated by some 25 countries.

In October 1987, he was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize for the promotion of Ibero-American co-operation. In January 1989, he was awarded the Olof Palme Prize for International Understanding and Common Security by the Olof Palme Memorial Fund. In February 1989, he was awarded the Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding.

Mr. Perez de Cuellar is married and has two children.

Mr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali became the sixth Secretary-General of the United Nations on 1 January 1992, when he began a five-year term. At the time of his appointment by the General Assembly on 3 December 1991, Mr. Boutros-Ghali had been Deputy Prime Minister for Foreign Affairs of Egypt since May 1991 and had served as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs from October 1977 until 1991.

Mr. Boutros-Ghali has had a long association with international affairs as a diplomat, jurist, scholar and widely published author.

He became a member of the Egyptian Parliament in 1987 and was part of the secretariat of the National Democratic Party from 1980. Until assuming the office of Secretary-General of the United Nations, he was also Vice- President of the Socialist International.

He was a member of the International Law Commission from 1979 until 1991, and is a former member of the International Commission of Jurists. He has many professional and academic associations related to his background in law, international affairs and political science, among them, his membership in the Institute of International Law, the International Institute of Human Rights, the African Society of Political Studies and the Académie des sciences morales et politique (Académie française, Paris).

Over four decades, Mr. Boutros-Ghali participated in numerous meetings dealing with international law, human rights, economic and social development, decolonization, the Middle East question, international humanitarian law, the rights of ethnic and other minorities, non-alignment, development in the Mediterranean region and Afro-Arab cooperation.

In September 1978, Mr. Boutros-Ghali attended the Camp David Summit Conference and had a role in negotiating the Camp David accords between Egypt and Israel, which were signed in 1979. He led many delegations of his country to meetings of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) and the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries, as well as to the Summit Conference of the French and African Heads of State. He also headed Egypt's delegation to the General Assembly sessions in 1979, 1982 and 1990.

Mr. Boutros-Ghali received a Ph.D. in international law from Paris University in 1949. His thesis was on the study of regional organizations. Mr. Boutros-Ghali also holds a Bachelor of Laws degree, received from Cairo University in 1946, as well as separate diplomas in political science, economics and public law from Paris University.

Between 1949 and 1977, Mr. Boutros-Ghali was Professor of International Law and International Relations at Cairo University. From 1974 to 1977, he was a member of the Central Committee and Political Bureau of the Arab Socialist Union.

Among his other professional and academic activities, Mr. Boutros-Ghali was a Fulbright Research Scholar at Columbia University (1954-1955); Director of the Centre of Research of The Hague Academy of International Law (1963-1964); and Visiting Professor at the Faculty of Law, Paris University (1967-1968). He has lectured on international law and international relations at universities in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and North America.

Mr. Boutros-Ghali was President of the Egyptian Society of International Law from 1965; President of the Centre of Political and Strategic Studies (Al-Ahram) from 1975; member of the Curatorium Administrative Council of The Hague Academy of International Law from 1978; member of the Scientific Committee of the Académie mondiale pour la paix (Menton, France) from 1978; and associate member of the Institute affari internazionali (Rome) from 1979. He served as a member of the Committee on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations of the International Labour Organisation from 1971 until 1979. Mr. Boutros-Ghali also founded the publication Alahram Iqtisadi, which he edited from 1960 to 1975, and the quarterly Al-Seyassa Al-Dawlia, which he edited until December 1991.

The more than 100 publications and numerous articles that Mr. Boutros-Ghali has written deal with regional and international affairs, law and diplomacy, and political science.

During the course of his career, Mr. Boutros-Ghali has received awards and honours from 24 countries, which, besides Egypt, include Belgium, Italy, Colombia, Guatemala, France, Ecuador, Argentina, Nepal, Luxembourg, Portugal, Niger, Mali, Mexico, Greece, Chile, Brunei Darussalam, Germany, Peru, C&ocircte d'Ivoire, Denmark, Central African Republic, Sweden and the Republic of Korea. He has also been decorated with the Sovereign Military Order of Malta.

He was awarded a doctorate of law honoris causa from the Institute of State and Law of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (September 1992); a doctorate honoris causa from l'Institut d'études politiques de Paris (January 1993); the Christian A. Herter Memorial Award from the World Affairs Council, Boston (March 1993); a doctorate honoris causa from The Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium (April 1993); the "Man of Peace" award, sponsored by the Italian-based Together for Peace Foundation (July 1993); an honorary doctorate degree from the University of Laval, Quebec (August 1993); and the Arthur A. Houghton Jr. Star Crystal Award for Excellence from the African-American Institute, New York (November 1993).

In addition, he was given an honorary membership of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, Moscow (April 1994); an honorary foreign membership of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow (April 1994); an honourary foreign membership of the Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Minsk, (April 1994); an honorary doctorate from the University Carlos III of Madrid (April 1994); an honorary degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. (May 1994); a doctorate in international law honoris causa from the University of Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada (August 1994); honorary doctorates from the University of Bucharest (October 1994), University of Baku (October 1994), University of Yerevan (November 1994), University of Haifa (February 1995), University of Vienna (February 1995), and University of Melbourne (April 1995); and a doctorate of law honoris causa from Carleton University, Canada (November 1995). He was made a Fellow of Berkeley College, Yale University (March 1995) and is the recipient of the Onassis Award for International Understanding and Social Achievement (July 1995). He was awarded an honorary doctorate of law by the University Montesquien of Bordeau, France (March 1996), and he received an honorary doctorate from Koryo University, Seoul, Republic of Korea (April 1996).

Mr. Boutros-Ghali was born in Cairo on 14 November 1922. He is married to Leia Maria Boutros-Ghali.

KOFI A. ANNAN of Ghana , the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations, served from 1997 to 2006 and was the first to emerge from the ranks of United Nations staff.



One of Mr. Annan's main priorities as Secretary-General w as a comprehensive programme of reform aimed at revitalizing the United Nations and making the international system more effective. He was a constant advocate for human rights, the rule of law, the Millennium Development Goals and Africa , and sought to bring the Organization closer to the global public by forging ties with civil society, the private sector and other partners.



At Mr. Annan's initiative, UN peacekeeping was strengthened in ways that enabled the United Nations to cope with a rapid rise in the number of operations and personnel. It was also at Mr. Annan's urging that, in 2005, Member States established two new intergovernmental bodies: the Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council. Mr. Annan likewise played a central role in the creation of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, the adoption of the UN's first-ever counter-terrorism strategy, and the acceptance by Member States of the “responsibility to protect” people from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. His “Global Compact” initiative, launched in 1999, has become the world's largest effort to promote corporate social responsibility.



Mr. Annan undertook wide-ranging diplomatic initiatives. In 1998, he helped to ease the transition to civilian rule in Nigeria . Also that year, he visited Iraq in an effort to resolve an impasse between that country and the Security Council over compliance with resolutions involving weapons inspections and other matters -- an effort that helped to avoid an outbreak of hostilities, which was imminent at that time. In 1999, he was deeply involved in the process by which Timor-Leste gained independence from Indonesia . He was responsible for certifying Israel 's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, and in 2006, his efforts contributed to securing a cessation of hostilities between Israel and Hizbollah. Also in 2006, he mediated a settlement of the dispute between Cameroon and Nigeria over the Bakassi peninsula through implementation of the judgement of the International Court of Justice. His efforts to strengthen the Organization's management, coherence and accountability involved major investments in training and technology, the introduction of a new whistleblower policy and financial disclosure requirements, and steps aimed at improving coordination at the country level.



Career highlights

Mr. Annan joined the UN system in 1962 as an administrative and budget officer with the World Health Organization in Geneva . He later served with the Economic Commission for Africa in Addis Ababa , the UN Emergency Force (UNEF II) in Ismailia , the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Geneva , and in various senior posts in New York dealing with human resources, budget, finance and staff security. Immediately before becoming Secretary-General, he was Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping . Mr. Annan also served as Special Representative of the Secretary-General to the former Yugoslavia (1995-1996), and facilitated the repatriation from Iraq of more than 900 international staff and other non-Iraqi nationals (1990).



Education

Mr. Annan studied at the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi , Ghana , and completed his undergraduate work in economics at Macalester College in St. Paul , Minnesota in 1961. In 1961-1962, he undertook graduate studies at the Institute of International Affairs in Geneva , and in 1972 earned a Master of Science degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School of Management.



Prizes and awards

Mr. Annan was awarded the 2001 Nobel Prize for Peace, jointly with the Organization. He has also received numerous honorary degrees and many other national and international prizes, medals and honours.



Personal

Mr. Annan was born in Kumasi , Ghana , on 8 April 1938, and is fluent in English, French and several African languages. He and his wife, Nane, between them have three children.

Ban Ki-moon (born June 13, 1944) is the current Secretary-General of the United Nations.

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 college, accepting his first post in New Delhi. 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 Korea, however, he was able to travel to all of the countries that were members of the United Nations Security Council, a manoeuvre that turned him into the campaign's front runner.

On October 13, 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly. On January 1, 2007, he succeeded Kofi Annan, and passed several major reforms regarding 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 Darfur, where he helped persuade Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan.

Martin Luther King, Jr. (January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968), was one of the pivotal leaders of the American civil rights movement. King was a Baptist minister, one of the few leadership roles available to black men at the time. He became a civil rights activist early in his career. He led the Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955–1956) and helped found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1957), serving as its first president. His efforts led to the 1963 March on Washington, where King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech. Here he raised public consciousness of the civil rights movement and established himself as one of the greatest orators in U.S. history. In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent means.

King was assassinated on April 4, 1968, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter in 1977. Martin Luther King Day was established as a national holiday in the United States in 1986. In 2004, King was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal.[1]

Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (born Llhamo Döndrub [[[Tibetan script|Tibetan]]: ?; Wylie: Lha-mo Don-'grub] 6 July 1935 in Tibet), is the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama.[1] He is a practicing member of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism and is influential as a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, as the world's most famous Buddhist monk, and is leader of the exiled Tibetan government in Dharamsala, India.

Gyatso was the fifth of 16 children born to a farming family in the village of Taktser in the Tibetan province of Amdo where he learned the Amdo dialect of Tibetan as his first language.[2][3] He was proclaimed the tulku (rebirth) of the thirteenth Dalai Lama two years after he was born.

On 17 November 1950, at the age of fifteen, he was enthroned as Tibet's ruler. Thus he became Tibet's most important political ruler just one month after the People's Republic of China's invasion of Tibet on 7 October 1950. In 1951, the Tibetans, under pressure from the People's Liberation Army of China, signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which was ratified by the Dalai Lama a few months later[4]. In 1954, he went to Beijing to attempt peace talks with Mao Zedong and other leaders of China's communist government, according to Tibet.com, the website of Tibet's government in exile. These talks ultimately failed.[5] In 1956, however, the Dalai Lama became the chair of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region (PCART).[6]

After a failed uprising and the collapse of the Tibetan resistance movement in 1959, the Dalai Lama left for India, where he was active in establishing the Central Tibetan Administration (the Tibetan Government in Exile) and in seeking to preserve Tibetan culture and education among the thousands of refugees who accompanied him.[7]

Tenzin Gyatso is a charismatic figure[2][8] and noted public speaker. This Dalai Lama is the first to travel to the West. There, he has helped to spread Buddhism and to promote the concepts of universal responsibility, secular ethics, and religious harmony.

He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989,[2][9] honorary Canadian citizenship in 2006, and the United States Congressional Gold Medal on 17 October 2007.[10]

Laird (2006: p.23) in a published transcription of a conversation with Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama identifies the karmic "connections" or mindstream affinities he has:

"If someone asks me whether I am the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama," he said, "then I answer, without hesitation, yes. This does not mean that I am the same being as the previous Dalai Lama. Some Dalai Lamas are a manifestation of Manjushri. Some are a manifestation of Chenrizi. Chenrizi is the manifestation of compassion. Manjushri is the manifestation of wisdom. I have a special connection with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama and the Fifth Dalai Lama. I have felt some kind of karmic relations or connections even with the Buddha. I feel I can say I have some kind of connection with the previous Dalai Lamas, some of the previous masters, with Chenrizi, even with the Buddha."[11]

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela IPA: [xolí?a?a mandé?la] (born 18 July 1918) is a former President of South Africa, the first to be elected in fully representative democratic elections. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist and leader of the African National Congress and its armed wing Umkhonto we Sizwe. He spent 27 years in prison, much of it on Robben Island, on convictions for crimes that included sabotage committed while he spearheaded the struggle against apartheid.

Among opponents of apartheid in South Africa and internationally, he became a symbol of freedom and equality, while the apartheid government and nations sympathetic to it condemned him and the ANC as communists and terrorists.

Following his release from prison in February 11, 1990, his switch to a policy of reconciliation and negotiation helped lead the transition to multi-racial democracy in South Africa. Since the end of apartheid, he has been widely praised, even by former opponents.

Mandela has received more than one hundred awards over four decades, most notably the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993. He is currently a celebrated elder statesman who continues to voice his opinion on topical issues. In South Africa he is often known as Madiba, an honorary title adopted by elders of Mandela's clan. The title has come to be synonymous with Nelson Mandela.

Mandela has frequently credited Mahatma Gandhi for being a major source of inspiration in his life, both for the philosophy of non-violence and for facing adversity with dignity.