Replacing Kofi...

This article's premise that Kofi "has done well" is debatable. Many of us would have liked to see Kofi pay the price for the staggeringly massive oil for food scandal, but change at the top of the U.N. is coming and that process appears to me to be both interesting and somewhat discouraging.

... In a thoroughly opaque process - not greatly dissimilar to the selection of a new pope - some of the fifteen countries on the UN Security Council have already put forward candidates for consideration. In late July 2006, the council held its first straw poll. Each government signaled its preferences by marking on secret ballots whether it would "encourage" or "discourage" a candidate or offer "no opinion". The second straw poll - seen as hugely significant in terms of the final outcome - is likely to be held very shortly.

Although many of the proposed candidates have impressive records of political and diplomatic service behind them, none of them is widely known beyond their home countries or outside of the UN system. The four main contenders are from Asia, a reflection of an existing unwritten rule that the top UN job should rotate and that this time is Asia's turn.

The marginal frontrunner to succeed Annan is Ban Ki-Moon, minister of foreign affairs and trade in South Korea. In the July straw poll he received more "encouragements" and fewer "discouragements" than any other candidate. He has good relations with the United States (having served twice in the Korean embassy in Washington) and with China. Ki-Moon has been deeply involved in trying to reduce tensions on the Korean peninsula, including a major role in attempting to defuse the North Korean nuclear issue at the fifth round of the six-party talks on Korea, held in Beijing in November 2005. But ironically this may work against him. There are few people who appear to have the trust of the Chinese, the North Koreans and the other parties to this process, and there may be pressure to keep him in post.

No one on the list of "contenders" is from the U.S., U.K., or Australia... other than Tony Blair and Bill Clinton at the bottom as "Populist Long Shots". Shocking.