A Quote by Kofi Annan
It's always a difficult time to be secretary general.
Related Quotes
If the U.N. secretary-general withdraws the inspectors from Baghdad ... this means that the secretary-general has abandoned its own responsibility in maintaining peace and security in the world.
When they called me with the Nobel call from Secretary General of the Swedish Academy it was twenty minutes to six and he said well that was well hope I'm not disturbing you but I am the Secretary General of the Swedish Academy. Of course you can imagine I was frozen in time when he said that but then he made a very famous statement, something to the effect that this is the last 20 minutes of peace of your life.
The UN was very media-shy, and its relationship with the press was very controlled; although periodically I spoke to the press, the rule was, only the secretary-general speaks to the press; only the secretary-general makes... So you would see many situations where under-secretaries-general would come in and speak. I opened that, and I encouraged all of them to speak in their areas, whether it was peacekeeping or humanitarian efforts.
In 2012, General Dempsey, General Petraeus directed the CIA, Secretary Panetta and Secretary Clinton recommended to the president to robustly arm and train the Syrian moderates. He says no. In 2013, conduct a military strike, same national security team, against the Assad regime because he violated the chemical red line. He says no.
And the Marshall Plan, to us, meant a general who had turned into a secretary of state, and that the secretary of state saw the necessity of the reconstruction of these European countries that had suffered so heavily.
From the beginning of my time as Secretary-General, I have sought to advance a practical, action-oriented vision of the U.N. as the voice of the voiceless and the defender of the defenceless.
Both Bush as well, as Tony Blair, are undermining an idea which was sponsored by their predecessors. They do not care. Is it because the secretary-general of the United Nations [Ghanaian Kofi Annan] is now a black man? They never did that when secretary-generals were white.
The Secretary of Labor is in charge of finding you a job, the Secretary of the Treasury is in charge of taking half the money you make away from you, and the Attorney General is in charge of suing you for the other half.
I was an office secretary for a long time. A good secretary.
Comrade Stalin, having become Secretary-General, has unlimited authority concentrated in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be capable of using that authority with sufficient caution.
TV's Tony Snow becomes the White House press secretary. How will he make the difficult transition from Fox News reporter to Republican apologist? ... Mr. President, it is time to hire the folks who've never let you down. Limbaugh at Health and Human Services. Hannity at State. Then give Rummy the Medal of Freedom and install Bill O'Reilly as secretary of defense. Only problem, you might find yourself invading Vermont. And I'll replace Chertoff at Homeland Security. The man's done nothing to control the bear population.
You don't do that while you're being paid by taxpayers to do a very difficult and full-time job, and you also do not bring Clinton Foundation interests into the domain of the secretary of state, and you do not give preferred access to your own personal clients.
I fully support U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon in his Global Education First Initiative and the work of U.N. Special Envoy for Global Education Gordon Brown and the respectful president of the U.N. General Assembly Vuk Jeremic. I thank them for the leadership they continue to give.
The evening passes somehow; I watch television with Nancy, or I write. It is difficult, not having a family, and it is difficult to explain. I always go to bed early. And I am always ready for Monday morning, that time that other people dread.
I think the biggest misconception about experimental film in general is that it is always difficult and inaccessible.
I can't imagine here would be a Chinese Gorbachev. But the party will gradually open up. For instance, it has already set a time limit for political reforms in Hong Kong. And in four years time, there won't be a strongman to name the General Secretary at the party congress. That means that the various factions will have to develop better rules for naming their leader. But there won't be a timeline for political reform.
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