LEAD: Japan's Akasaka named to serve as U.N. public information chief

0 Comments | Asian Political News, Feb 12, 2007

NEW YORK, Feb. 9 Kyodo

(EDS: ADDING INFO)

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon has named Kiyotaka Akasaka, deputy secretary general of the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, as U.N. undersecretary general for communications and public information, the United Nations said Friday.

Akasaka is the seventh Japanese to take the post of U.N. undersecretary general.

The world body also said the U.N. chief appointed Lynn Pascoe, who is now the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, as U.N. undersecretary general for political affairs.

Ban also named Ambassador Sha Zukang, China's permanent representative to the U.N. office in Geneva, as undersecretary general for economic and social affairs, and Muhammad Shaaban of Egypt, currently national coordinator for reform initiatives in the Middle East, as undersecretary general for General Assembly and Conference Management.

In answering questions about the selections of the senior officials at a press conference, Vijay Nambiar, Ban's chef de cabinet, told reporters that the secretary general ''is conscious that he needs to take advantage and in a sense leverage the experience that is there; he is also conscious of the need to build new talent and experience.''

Ban has yet to fill other top posts at the Senior Management Group, which serves as his Cabinet, such as undersecretaries general for peacekeeping operations and disarmament affairs -- the two posts now under review for possible restructuring.

The appointments to the posts that lie outside the scope of reorganization are seen by many as a move to deflect criticism of the slow pace at which the new secretary general is filling his leadership ranks.

The last appointment made at the highest level of the United Nations was in early January.

Akasaka, a native of Osaka, joined Japan's Foreign Ministry in 1971 and served as an ambassador at the Japanese permanent mission for the United Nations and as consul general in Sao Paulo among other posts before taking up the senior OECD post in August 2003. He is known to be well-versed in global warming and trade issues.

Pascoe served as U.S. principal deputy assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs and director of the American Institute in Taiwan, the organization that handles relations between the United States and Taiwan, before assuming the current ambassadorial post in 2004.

Pascoe served at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing twice and is proficient in Chinese.

As Akasaka will join the United Nations, Nobuaki Tanaka, who is serving as U.N. undersecretary general for disarmament affairs, is set to leave his post. He is expected to return to the Japanese Foreign Ministry.

Sha has spent 37 years as a diplomat involved in the fields of security, economy, social, human rights and humanitarian affairs. He previously served as director general for the Department of Arms Control for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 1997-2001. Prior to that, he was the ambassador for disarmament affairs and deputy permanent representative of China to the United Nations in Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland.

Shaaban has served as assistant foreign minister for European affairs and was national coordinator for the Euro-Mediterranean partnership, the Mediterranean forum and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.