Ban Ki-moon is a South Korean diplomat and 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 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.

Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ban_Ki-moon

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

303: Roman Emperor Diocletian's first "Edict against the Christians" was published, beginning the Diocletianic Persecution, the last and most severe episode of the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diocletianic_Persecution)

1582: Pope Gregory XIII issued the papal bull Inter gravissimas to promulgate the Gregorian calendar, a modification of the Julian calendar in use since 45 BC. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Gregory_XIII)

1803: In their ruling in Marbury v. Madison, the U.S. Supreme Court established judicial review in the United States. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marbury_v._Madison)

1848: Amid a revolt, French King Louis-Philippe abdicated and escaped to England, leading to the creation of the French Second Republic. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis-Philippe_of_France)

1946: Colonel Juan Perón, founder of the political movement that became known as Peronism, was elected to his first term as President of Argentina. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Per%C3%B3n)

_____________________ Wiktionary's Word of the day:

burgeon: To grow or expand. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/burgeon)

_____________________ Wikiquote of the day:

When you're young, you look at television and think, There's a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that's not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That's a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It's the truth. -- Steve Jobs (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Steve_Jobs)