My good Sister Jabou and brother Yus, I totally agree with you all. Yet you have to also realize that the Secretary General serves at the pleasure of the permanent members of Security Council of which the US is preponderant. This situation is by design only, considering the evolution of the UN since the League of Nations after the WWI. US foreign policy has ever been weary of any form of "entangling treaties and alliances" in any form, in fact this US "paranoia" prevented the US from being a member of the League which ironically was the very brainchild of the US president then Woodrow Wilson. So you see the US has ever been uncomfortable with UN. Yes Japan is an economic power, but not a permanent member of the the Security Council, and has very little political clout. The Security Council sets the global agenda through the instruments of their individual veto powers and collective resolutions. The secretary general is just an administrative caretaker after all. No matter how well he means or grand his intentions, he has to be ultimately very pragmatic and prudent in the choices he makes! Yus, your question is a genuine one- why shouldn't Mr. Annan use his position to promote African issues- Honestly I see why not...! as long as he is prudent about it. Recently he has been scaring the hell out of Jesse Helms and a lot of other Western powers but I believe his success in whatever his intentions are shall depend alot on the political goodwill of the US. Greetings Ebou _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface ----------------------------------------------------------------------------