Kofi Annan
Kofi Annan
Kofi Atta Annanis a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations from January 1997 to December 2006. Annan and the United Nations were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for a better organized and more peaceful world." He is the founder and the Chairman of the Kofi Annan Foundation, as well as being the chairman of The Elders, a group founded by Nelson Mandela...
NationalityGhanaian
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth8 April 1938
CityKumasi, Ghana
CountryGhana
The people of Serbia want to have a say in the decisions affecting them. And I hope that this choice and their voice will be heard.
Whatever our differences, in our interdependent world, we stand or fall together, ... Even the strongest among us cannot succeed alone...We cannot succeed without the leadership of the strong and the engagement of all.
Today, it is thanks in large part to the firm challenge issued by President Bush -- and the pressure that followed it -- that the inspectors are back in Iraq.
Today let us hear the bell ring loud and clear and true to our conscience, ... Let it ring out a century of cruelty and destruction and let it ring in a millennium of hope and peace.
If information and knowledge are central to democracy, they are conditions for development.
Time and again, when member states and the governments are faced with an insoluble problem, and they're under pressure to do something, that something usually ends up being referred to the U.N.
I don't share the view that the ICC is anti-African. The ICC is not putting Africa on trial. The ICC is fighting impunity and individuals who are accused of crimes.
There are no excuses, ... If we are to show ourselves worthy of calling ourselves members of humankind, we must rise to this challenge. Our response will be no less than a measure of our humanity.
The process has been difficult, but the outcome is a clear demonstration of the will of all the members of the Security Council to place the interest of the Iraqi people above all other considerations.
The only way to escape from the present downward spiral lies through ending the violence and resuming negotiations aimed at comprehensive peaceful settlement based on relevant United Nations resolutions,
The only way to halt an escalation of violence is for Israelis and Palestinians to work towards a viable negotiating process aimed at a just, lasting and comprehensive settlement,
Unfortunately, very few governments think about youth unemployment when they are drawing up their national plans.
On climate change, we often don't fully appreciate that it is a problem. We think it is a problem waiting to happen.
What governments and people don't realise is that sometimes the collective interest - the international interest - is also the national interest.