Name	Lee Myung-bak
Office	17th President of the Republic of Korea
Primeminister	Han Seung-sooChung Un-chanKim Hwang-sik
Predecessor	Roh Moo-hyun
Term start	25 February 2008
Office2	Mayor of Seoul
Predecessor2	Goh Kun
Successor2	Oh Se-hoon
Term start2	1 July 2002
Term end2	30 June 2006
Office3	Member of the 15th National Assembly of the Republic of Korea for the electoral district of Jongno-gu
Predecessor3	Lee Jong-chan
Successor3	Roh Moo-hyun
Term start3	30 May 1996
Term end3	21 February 1998
Office4	Member of the 14th National Assembly of the Republic of Korea
Term start4	30 May 1992
Term end4	29 May 1996
Birth date	December 19, 1941
Birth place	Osaka, Japan
Nationality	South Korean
Party	Grand National Party
Spouse	Kim Yoon-ok
Children	Lee Joo-yeonLee Seung-yeonLee Soo-yeonLee Si-hyung
Alma mater	Korea University
Profession	Businessman
Religion	Christianity
Signature	Lee myungbak signature.png }}

Title	Korean name
Hangul	이명박
Hanja
Rr	I Myeongbak
Mr	Yi Myŏngbak
Hangulho	일송
Hanjaho
Rrho	Ilsong
Mrho	Ilsong
Text	Japanese name:}}

}} Lee Myung-bak (, ; born 19 December 1941) is the President of South Korea. Prior to his presidency, he was the CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction and the mayor of Seoul. He is married to Kim Yoon-ok and has three daughters and one son. His older brother is Lee Sang-deuk, a South Korean politician. He attends the Somang Presbyterian Church. He received a honorary degree from Paris Diderot University on May 13, 2011.

Lee altered the South Korean government's approach to North Korea, preferring a more hardline strategy in the wake of increased provocations from the North, but is also supportive of regional dialogue with Russia, China, and Japan. Under Lee, South Korea weathered the Global Financial Crisis and has emerged as a major player on the international scene through hosting the 2010 G-20 Seoul summit.

Early life and education

Lee Myung-bak was born on December 19, 1941 in Osaka, Japan. The Lee family had emigrated to Japan during the Japanese colonization of Korea. His father, Lee Chung-u (이충우; 李忠雨), was employed as a farm hand on a cattle ranch in Japan, and his mother, Chae Taewon (채태원; 蔡太元) was a housewife. Lee is the fifth of seven children, with three brothers and three sisters. After the end of World War II in 1945, his family returned to his father's hometown of Pohang, in Gyeongsangbuk-do, South Korea. Lee's sister, Lee Ki-sun, made it known that they smuggled themselves into the country in order to avoid the property they acquired in Japan being confiscated by the officials. However, because the ship they took was wrecked off the coast of Tsushima island they lost all their belongings after all and the family barely survived.

Lee attended night school at Dongji Commercial High School in Pohang, at the time he received a scholarship. A year after graduation, Lee gained admission to Korea University. In 1964, during his third year in college, Lee was elected president of the student council. That year, Lee participated in student demonstrations against President Park Chung-hee's Seoul-Tokyo Talks taking issue with Japanese restitution for the colonization of the Korean peninsula. He was charged with plotting insurrection and was sentenced to five years probation and three years of imprisonment by the Supreme Court of Korea. He served a little under three months of his term at the Seodaemun prison in Seoul.

In his autobiography Lee writes that he was dismissed from Korea's mandatory military service due to a diagnosis of acute bronchiectasis while at the Nonsan Training Facility.

Business career

In 1965, Lee started to work at Hyundai Construction which was awarded Korea's first-ever overseas construction, a $5.2 million contract to build the Pattani-Narathiwat Highway in Thailand. Despite being a new employee, Lee was sent to Thailand to participate in the project. The project was successfully completed in March 1968, and Lee returned to Korea and was subsequently given charge of Hyundai's heavy machinery plant in Seoul.

Lee pledged with Park Chung-Hee not to protest any of Park's policy and in return of that promise, Park enforced Hyundai Construction to employ Lee Myung-bak. It was during his three decades with the Hyundai Group that Lee earned the nickname "Bulldozer". In one instance, he completely dismantled a malfunctioning bulldozer to study its mechanics and figure out how to repair it.

Lee became a company director at the age of 29 – just five years after he joined the company – and CEO at age 35, becoming Korea's youngest CEO ever. In 1988, he was named the chairman of Hyundai Construction at the age of 47.

When he started at Hyundai in 1965, it had 90 employees; when he left as chairman after 27 years, it had more than 160,000. Soon after the successful completion of the Pattani-Narathiwat Highway by Hyundai Construction, Korea's construction industry began to focus their efforts on encouraging the creation of new markets in countries such as Vietnam and the Middle East. Following the decline of construction demands from Vietnam in the 60s, Hyundai construction turned their eyes toward the Middle East and continued to be a major player in construction projects, with the successful completion of such vital international projects as the Arab Shipbuilding & Repair Yard, the Diplomatic Hotel in Bahrain and the Jubail Industrial Harbor Projects in Saudi Arabia, also known as 'the great history of the 20th century'. At that time, the amount of orders received by the Korean construction company exceeded US$10 billion and this contributed in overcoming the national crisis resulting from the oil shock.

After leaving Hyundai at the end of a 27-year career, he decided to enter politics.

Early political career

In 1992 Lee made the transition from business to politics. He joined the Democratic Liberal Party instead of the Unification National Party, founded by Chung Ju-yung. He was elected as a member of the 14th Korean National Assembly (for Proportional representation). Upon being elected, he stated that he ran because "after watching Mikhail Gorbachev change the world climate I wanted to see if there was anything I could do." In 1995, he ran for the City of Seoul's mayoral election, but during the primary of the Democratic Liberal Party, former prime minister Chung Won-sik was selected as the candidate.

In 1996, Lee was re-elected as a member of the Korean National Assembly. He represented Jongno-gu in Seoul. At the election, one of his opponents was another future president, Roh Moo-hyun. Roh was ranked 3rd place.

After he became a second-term lawmaker, it was disclosed that he had spent excessively in his election campaign. He resigned in 1998 before being fined 4 million won for breaking election law. In the by-election that was held after his resignation, Roh Moo-hyun was elected as his successor.

Mayor of Seoul

In 2002, Lee ran for mayor of Seoul and won. However, he was fined for beginning election activities too early. Lee was acquitted of the two-year prison sentence sought by prosecutors. During his tenure as mayor, he was noted for the restoration of the Cheonggyecheon, a popular stream in Seoul. It is often said as successful restoration by supporters of Lee Myung Bak. However, Cheonggyecheon is criticized as harming the environment. For instance, many different types of fish have disappeared since completion of restoration of Cheonggyecheon.

As the Mayor of Seoul Lee's most ostensible projects include the restoration of Cheonggyecheon, the creation of Seoul Forest, the opening of Seoul Forest Park, the construction of a grassy field in front of Seoul City Hall, and the addition of rapid transit buses to the city's transportation system. Lee also worked to transform the area around Seoul City Hall from a concrete traffic circle to a lawn where people can gather. The 2002 World Cup showed how the area could be used as a cultural space that came to be known as Seoul Plaza. In May 2004, the tape was cut to open a newly built park in the area, a grassy field where Seoul residents could come to relax and take in cultural performances. The major accomplishment during his term as a Mayor of Seoul would be the restoration of Cheonggyecheon. With his unremitting drive, the stream now flowed through the heart of Seoul and turned the place into a modern public recreation space. Citizens of Seoul were not the only ones that heaped praise on President Lee. In May 2006, Asian Times reported that "Seoul, once synonymous with 'concrete jungle,' has achieved successful transformation of its face into a green oasis and now it is inculcating upon other Asian cities with the love of environment", inserting the picture of Lee standing ankle-deep in the waters of Cheonggyecheon stream. Moreover, in October 2007, President Lee was chosen as a 'Hero of the Environment' in Time magazine along with former U.S. vice president, Al Gore.

Presidential election

On May 10, 2007, Lee officially declared his intention to run for the Grand National Party as its presidential candidate. On August 20, 2007, he defeated Park Geun-hye in the GNP's primary to become its nominee for the 2007 Presidential election. During the primary, Lee was accused of profiting from illegal speculation on land owned in Dogok-dong, an expensive ward in Seoul. However, on August 2007, the prosecutors said in the interim announcement that "We do suspect Lee's brother's claim over the land in Dogok-dong, but have failed to verify the real owner of the asset". On September 28, 2007, the prosecutory authority officially dropped the suspicion that the Dogok land is under a borrowed-name announcing that "We have done all necessary investigations including tracing the proceeds from the sale of the land and call history and now got to the bottom of this case." In Dec 2007, a few days before the Presidential election, Lee announced that he would donate all of his assets to society.

His stated goals were expressed in the "747 Plan" and included: 7% annual growth in GDP, $40,000 USD per capita, and making Korea the world's seventh largest economy. An important part of his platform was the Grand Korean Waterway (한반도 대운하) project from Busan to Seoul, which he believes will lead to an economic revival. His political opponents criticized that the project was unrealistic and too costly to be realized. Others were concerned of possible negative environmental impact.

Signaling a departure from his previous views on North Korea, Lee announced a plan to "engage" North Korea through investment. Lee promised to form a consultative body with the North to discuss furthering economic ties. The body would have subcommittees on the economy, education, finance, infrastructure and welfare, and a cooperation fund of $40 billion. He promised to seek a Korean Economic Community agreement to establish the legal and systemic framework for any projects emerging from the negotiations. Lee also called for forming an aid office in North Korea as a way of decoupling humanitarian aid from nuclear talks.

His foreign policy initiative was called MB Doctrine, which advocates "engaging" North Korea and strengthening the US-Korean alliance.

The BBK Scandal and Kim Kyung-joon

During the 2007 presidential election, questions about his relationship with a company called BBK were raised. In 1999, Lee set up several companies for electronic financial services. During this time, he met Kim Kyung-joon. Lee established the LKE Bank with Kim Kyung-joon but this enterprise went bankrupt less than a year later and 5,500 investors lost substantial amounts of money. Supposed BBK co-founder Kim Kyung-joon was investigated for large-scale embezzlement and stock price-fixing schemes. Kim Kyung-joon had initially stated that Lee was not involved with the company, and Lee himself denied being associated with BBK, claiming that he had never held even a single share in it.

However, Kim later suggested that Lee had in fact directed BBK activities and a recorded lecture video at Gwang-woon University that shows that Lee had involved with BBK.

Kim Hong-il of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors Office cleared Lee of any wrongdoing, but three days before the election, a video of a speech Lee gave to students at Kwangwoon University in October 2000 surfaced, in which Lee "bragged" that he had founded BBK. Two days before the election, the National Assembly appointed a special prosecutor to investigate.

Special Investigator Chung Ho-young declared Lee innocent of accusations related to fraud and the BBK. Critics suggested that investigators may have felt too intimidated to delve too deeply into the case, as they interviewed Lee in a restaurant in Seoul that was once a kisaeng house. In contrast, the special prosecutor team announced that the initially-planned interview location was leaked to the media so it urgently decided to do the interview at another location, a Korean restaurant away from the city.They also declared that they were fully prepared and the amount of time allocated for the investigation was sufficient.

Eventually, prosecutors sought a 15-year sentence and a fine of 30 billion won for former BBK owner Kim Kyung-joon on charges of stock manipulation and embezzlement. In the final hearing held at the Seoul Central District Court, the prosecutors said Kim, who founded and operated the boiler-room operation is suspected of crimes including embezzlement of W31.9 billion of investors' money, stock manipulation, and the forgery and execution of private documents but had shown no remorse nor repaid his debts.

Earlier, Kim Ki-dong, a prosecutor at the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office, said, "This is a case in which an individual person has made a mockery of the Republic of Korea." For spreading "false" rumors about Lee on the eve of the presidential election, the Seoul Central District Court convicted Kim of violating the nation's election law, handing down a one-year prison term. He was given another six months for document forgery to back his attacks on Lee. Kim admitted in the end that President Lee had nothing to do with the BBK scandal and that he tried to avoid the criminal liability by manipulating the circumstance Korea was in. Prosecutors said in a statement that Kim had been changing the story with endless lies throughout the whole investigation process, making it extremely hard for them to draw up the protocol.

He even denied their request to use a lie detector. Prosecutors added by saying, "Kim's defense attorney also made a false statement by saying those who testified against Kim were all liars and committing perjury. This, in fact, is a contradictory statement to the Attorneys-at-Law and attorney ethics".

Regardless of Kim's public position on Lee's involvement, Lee Myung-bak was captured on video stating that he had established BBK. The prosecutors never clearly showed the relationship between Lee and BBK. Some of the prosecutors were promoted under Lee's presidency. Meanwhile, the USA court judged that Kim was free from all kinds of prosecutions regarding BBK.

Presidency

In spite of the lowest voter turnout ever for a presidential election in South Korea, Lee won the presidential election in December 2007 with 48.7% of the vote which was considered to be a landslide. He took the oath of office February 25, 2008, vowing to revitalize the economy, strengthen relations with the United States and "deal with" North Korea. Specifically, Lee declared that he would pursue a campaign of “global diplomacy” and seek further cooperative exchanges with regional neighbors Japan, China, and Russia. Furthermore, he pledged to strengthen South Korea-United States relations and implement a tougher policy with regards to North Korea, ideas that are promoted as the MB Doctrine.

Lee stated that he wanted to restore better relations with the United States through a greater emphasis on free market solutions.

Two months after his inauguration, Lee's approval ratings stood at 28%, and by June 2008 they had reached 17%. Bush and Lee also discussed the ratification of the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement or KORUS FTA, which faces opposition from legislators in both countries. While it was expected that Lee's agreement during the summit to partially lift the ban on US beef imports would remove the obstacles in approving the KORUS FTA in the US, many Koreans protested the resumption of U.S. beef imports.

As protests escalated, the Korean government issued a statement warning that violent protesters would be punished and measures would be taken to stop clashes between police and protesters. The protest continued for more than two months and the original purpose of the candlelight vigils against U.S. beef imports has been replaced by others, such as opposition to the privatization of public companies, education policy, construction of the Canal. The damages caused by protesters to the businesses around the demonstration and the social cost reached approximately 3,751,300,000,000 won.

Eventually, support for the protesters waned amongst the general public. According to the Wall Street Journal, Lee's plan to privatize public companies was a modest but "perhaps important step" toward reform.

As the government gained more stability, the approval rating of Lee's administration rose to 32.8%. Since the resumption of U.S. beef imports, more people are buying U.S. beef and now it has the second largest market share in Korea, after Australian beef.

Lee's approval ratings have reflected public perception of Korea's economic situation in the wake of the global economic meltdown. Signs of a strengthening economy and a landmark $40 billion deal won by a Korean consortium to build nuclear power plants in the United Arab Emirates have boosted Lee's popularity. His approval rating in January, 2010 stood at 51.6%.

Education policy

Lee has proposed a number of changes to the country's education system, reportedly with the aim of making education more appealing to the upper class. In contrast, introducing a tailor-made educational system, the Lee administration established the National Scholarship Foundation that offers services such as student loan and loan counseling. In addition, the government is currently promoting an income contingency pay-later plan in order to help out those struggling to pay tuition fees.

Teachers have been highly critical of these changes, arguing that Lee wants to turn Korean education into a "free market" while ignoring the underfunding of education in regions outside the Seoul area. However, the government designated 82 well-performing high schools in rural areas as 'public boarding school' and granted funds amounting to 317 billion won in total, 3.8 billion won each on average.

Moreover, the Lee Myung-bak government plans to use a pool of young Korean Americans for the promotion of after-school English education in public schools in rural areas with an aim to improve the quality of education. Prior to assuming the presidency, Lee's transition team announced it would implement a nationwide English-immersion program in order to provide students with the language tools necessary to be successful in a highly globalized world. Under this program, all classes would have been taught in English by 2010. However, Lee abandoned the program after facing strong opposition from parents, teachers, and education specialists. Currently, he is trying to implement a program where all English courses in middle and secondary schools will be taught in English only. This will require the government to educate many teachers in Korea and recruit university students studying abroad in English-speaking countries.

All schools in Gyeonggi Province will hold English-language classes in English only starting 2011, and every school in the province will have native speakers as teaching assistants by 2010. However, in 2011, Gyeonggi province held a hiring freeze, which eliminated over 40% of English teachers in the province. This project is aimed at teaching students to be comfortable speaking with English-speaking foreigners without taking extra classes at private institutions.

As part of an employment test starting 2008, applicants have to demonstrate their ability to conduct a class only in the language. Some schools with native-speaking teaching assistants will start so-called English immersion classes from 2008.

Economic policy

Mbnomics is the term applied to Lee's macroeconomic policy. The term is a portmanteau derived by combining initials of Myung-bak (Mb) and the term economics (-nomics) to form "Mbnomics".

Kang Man-Soo, the Minister of Strategy and Finance, is credited with the creation and design of Mbnomics.

The centerpiece of Lee's economic revitalization is his "Korea 7·4·7" plan. The plan takes its names from its goals: bring 7% economic growth during his term, raise Korea's per capita income to US$40,000, and make Korea the world's seventh largest economy. As Lee puts it, his government is mandated with creating a new Korea where "the people are affluent, society is warm and the state strong." To do this, he plans to follow a pragmatic, market-friendly strategy: Smart Market Economy, Empirical Pragmatism, Democratic Activism.

Nowadays, Lee wanted to move to low-carbon growth in coming decades. The government hopes to be a bridge between rich and poor countries in fighting global warming by setting itself 2020 goals for greenhouse gas emissions. In connection with the recent financial shock from the United States, President Lee emphasized the importance of solid cooperation between political and business circles. Lee also proposed a tripartite meeting among the finance ministers of South Korea, Japan, and China aimed at coordinating policies to cope with the credit crisis.

Mbnomics around early 2011 has a negative reputation due to his tax reduction plans for the rich, his inefficient resolution of corruptions among big banks, and his negligence of the housing policies.

Canal

Hong Jong-ho, an economist at Hanyang University, has claimed that the Grand Korean Waterway would create an “environmental disaster” that would worsen flooding and pollute the two rivers that supply drinking water for two-thirds of the country's population. He also said the waterway would be the most expensive construction project in South Korean history, costing as much as $50 billion. Some studies suggest that the Grand canal project, once completed, will block the source of affected water into the river and the dredging will remove the polluted sediments from the river bed which eventually will result in greater water quality, improving self-purification function of the river and facilitating the restoration of the ecosystem.

Few opponents of the project argue that during the construction process, damage to the environment could be caused by the concrete facility. However, one study states that when environmentally-friendly methods of construction (like 'swamp-restoration') are adopted that there will be a net positive effect (such as improving the Han River). Buddhist groups have voiced fears that it would submerge nearby Buddhist relics, which would cause irreparable damage to a significant portion of Korea's cultural legacy. On the other hand, some say that once the Kyungboo Canal is developed, another 177 cultural assets could be discovered during excavations, which could be used for tourist attraction. In particular, the development of the Canal will increase the accessibility to cultural assets that are far to reach, and hence more efficient management of those assets would be possible. Lee's promise to build the Grand Korean Waterway has stalled due to low public opinion.

If successful, Lee maintains his plan, which would include dredging and other measures to improve Korea's waterways, decreasing water pollution, and bringing economic benefits to local communities to name a few. Speaking in 2005 about the project, Lee said, "Many journalists questioned me why I keep commenting on the building of the canal. However, it's a simple fact that many cities around the world were benefited by making the best use of their rivers and seas." At a special conference held on June 19, 2008 President Lee announced that he will drop the Grand Canal project if the public opposes to the idea and the premier confirmed this statement on September 8, 2008. Despite this assurance, many now accuse Lee of continuing the Canal plan under the guise of "Maintenance of the 4 Great Rivers (4대강 정비사업)."

Cabinet

{| cellpadding="1" cellspacing="4" style="float:right; margin:3px; border:3px solid #000; font-size:90%;" |- ! style="background:#000;" colspan="3"| |- |align="left"|Office||align="left"|Name||align="left"|Term |- ! style="background:#000;" colspan="3"| |- |align="left"|President||align="left" |Lee Myung-bak||align="left"|2008- |- |align="left"|Prime Minister||align="left"|Han Seung-soo||align="left"|2008–2009 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Chung Un-chan||align="left"|2009–2010 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Kim Hwang-sik||align="left"|2010– |- ! style="background:#000;" colspan="3"| |- |align="left"|Minister for Strategy and Finance||align="left"|Kang Man-soo||align="left"|2008–2009 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|Yun Jeung-hyeon||align="left"|2009- |- |align="left"|Minister for Education and Science Technology||align="left"|Kim Do-yeon||align="left"|2008 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|An Byeong-man||align="left"|2008–2010 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|Lee Ju-ho||align="left"|2010- |- |align="left"|Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade||align="left"|Yu Myung-hwan||align="left"|2008–2010 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Kim Sung-hwan||align="left"|2010- |- |align="left"|Minister for Unification||align="left"|Kim Ha-jung||align="left"|2008–2009 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|Hyun In-taek||align="left"|2009- |- |align="left"|Minister for Justice||align="left"|Kim Kyung-han||align="left"|2008–2009 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|Lee Kwi-nam||align="left"|2009- |- |align="left"|Minister for National Defence||align="left"|Lee Sang-hee||align="left"|2008–2009 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|Kim Tae-young||align="left"|2009–2010 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|Kim Kwan-jin||align="left"|2010- |- |align="left"|Minister for Public Administration and Security||align="left"|Won Sei-hoon||align="left"|2008–2009 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|Lee Dal-gon||align="left"|2009–2010 |- |align="left"| ||align="left"|Maeng Hyung-kyu||align="left"|2010- |- |align="left"|Minister for Culture, Sports and Tourism||align="left"|Yu In-chon||align="left"|2008–2011 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Choung Byoung-gug||align="left"|2010- |- |align="left"|Minister for Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries||align="left"|Chung Woon-chun||align="left"|2008 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Chang Tae-pyung||align="left"|2008–2010 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Yoo Jeong-bok||align="left"|2010- |- |align="left"|Minister for Knowledge Economy||align="left"|Lee Youn-ho||align="left"|2008–2009 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Choi Kyung-hwan||align="left"|2009–2011 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Choi Joong-kyung||align="left"|2011- |- |align="left"|Minister for Health and Welfare and Family Affairs||align="left"|Kim Soung-yee||align="left"|2008 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Jun Jae-hee||align="left"|2008–2010 |- |align="left"|Minister for Health and Welfare||align="left"|Jun Jae-hee||align="left"|2010 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Chin Soo-hee||align="left"|2010- |- |align="left"|Minister for Environment||align="left"|Lee Maan-ee||align="left"|2008- |- |align="left"|Minister for Labor||align="left"|Lee Young-hee||align="left"|2008–2009 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Yim Tae-hee||align="left"|2009–2010 |- |align="left"|Minister for Employment and Labor||align="left"|Yim Tae-hee||align="left"|2010 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Bahk Jae-wan||align="left"|2010- |- |align="left"|Minister for Gender Equality||align="left"|Byun Do-yoon||align="left"|2008–2009 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Paik Hee-young||align="left"|2009–2010 |- |align="left"|Minister for Gender Equality and Family||align="left"|Paik Hee-young||align="left"|2010- |- |align="left"|Minister for Land, Transport and Maritime Affairs||align="left"|Chung Jong-hwan||align="left"|2008- |- |align="left"|Minister for Special Affairs||align="left"|Joo Ho-young||align="left"|2009–2010 |- |align="left"| ||align="left" |Yi Jae-oh||align="left"|2010- |}

Lee Myung-bak has faced strong criticism over his choice of political appointees: many of whom are wealthy. The concern is that Lee's appointees will favor policies that protect the rich while failing to address the needs of the underprivileged. Another criticism is that these appointees have been mostly chosen from the nation's southeast region (Gyeongsangbuk-do and Gyeongsangnam-do), which is known as a GNP stronghold.

While the fact that the property owned by high officials including ministers has increased on average, most of them were legally obtained and inherited property. Those ministers involved in the allegation of illegal real-estate speculation were already replaced. Hence, the average property owned by the three replaced ministers were only 1.7 billion won. In order to set aside the alleged regional bias, Lee's first cabinet appointment procedure faithfully abided by the principles and rules by appointing 4 from Seoul and Yeongnam district, 3 from Honam, Gangwon, and Chungcheong province, and 1 from North Korea.

Moreover, Lee's administration increased the welfare budget by 9% to help the poorest maintain the living and middle class's stability, and is pursuing many more policies for the benefit of the public than the former government. Lee's administration further claims that the tax reforms undertaken including the comprehensive property tax cut is not to benefit the wealthy and the haves but to correct a wrongful tax according to the market principle. Lee has also had to face corruption charges leveled at his administration. Three appointees have already resigned amid suspicions of corruption. And Lee’s top intelligence chief and anticorruption aide face accusations that they received bribes from The Samsung Group. Both Samsung and Lee denied the charges.

Those involved in the allegation of receiving bribes from Samsung group have been cleared of charges after special prosecutory investigation.

Lee on July 7, 2008 named Ahn Byong-man, a presidential advisor for state future planning, as his new minister of education, science and technology. Jang Tae-pyoung, a former secretary general of the Korea Independent Commission Against Corruption, becomes minister of food, agriculture, forestry and fisheries, and Grand National Party lawmaker Jeon Jae-hee minister of health, welfare and family affairs. In addition, Lee gave Prime Minister Han Seung-soo another chance in the belief that no proper working conditions have been provided for the Cabinet due to many pending issues since the inauguration of the new administration.

Foreign policy

Lee is widely considered pro-U.S. In mid-April 2008, Lee traveled to the United States for his first official overseas visit to meet with US President George W. Bush at the White House and Camp David. Lee's more aggressive approach towards North Korea was described as a welcome change for Bush, who was often at odds with Roh Moo-hyun. For a decade, what some people criticized as the former government's controversial and endless handing out of massive aid to North Korea, in the name of the 'National Coexistence, Independence' has failed to effectuate change in the North. The former government neglected the discussion on the nuclear issue with the North during the summit twice and struck a mass aid deal without any sort of social consensus and examination on the ways and means of the funding, which some say created an unnecessary burden to the Korean people.

The government's stance towards North Korea is not to violate the agreement made between the heads of the two Koreas but to mull over the economic feasibility and realizable possibility through negotiation based on mutual trust and respect, and prioritizing going forward with the project.

During a press conference, the two leaders expressed hope that North Korea would disclose the details of their nuclear weapons program, and pledged their commitment to resolve the issue through the multilateral Six-party talks. Lee also gave assurances that both the U.S. and South Korea would use dialogue to end the crisis. Despite Lee's wavering support at home, Lee's leadership was lauded by U.S. President Barack Obama at the 2009 G-20 London summit, where Obama called South Korea "[one of America's] closest allies and greatest friends." Obama and Lee agreed on a need "for a stern, united response from the international community" in light of North Korea's efforts toward a threatened satellite launch. Lee accepted an invitation by Obama to visit the United States on June 16, 2009.

Lee has also played a role in bringing about the normalization of South Korea's relations with Russia. Furthermore, Lee has built relationships with foreign leaders, including former Singaporean prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen, former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamed, former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

US beef imports

On April 18, 2008, Lee's administration agreed on resumption of U.S. beef imports. Previously, Korea had banned U.S. beef after a cow infected with BSE that had originated from Canada was found in Washington state. Fears that US beef imports in South Korea in relation to the U.S.-Korea Free Trade Agreement would cause Mad Cow disease infected beef to be imported to South Korea came to a boil in the summer of 2008.

Ten days after the deal was formally signed, MBC’s current affairs program “PD Diary” aired a multi-part episode entitled “U.S. beef, is it safe from mad cow disease?” It was reported by MBC that Koreans carry a gene making them more susceptible to mad cow disease than Americans. This claim has been retracted since by MBC. MBC further devoted 15 out of 25 other news slots to publicizing the issue showing images of downer cows from England and U.S., and reporting information such as claiming that vCJD is easily transmittable through blood transfusions, by eating instant noodles containing beef products, using cosmetics made with cow derived collagen, etc.. People's roar in an Internet community, Agora, also helped demonstrations to demand the renegotiation of the terms of the import deal. .

As public anger continued to snowball, citizen started public demonstrations. On many nights, the rallies turned into confrontations with the violent police. When candles had burned out and children had gone home with their parents, many protesters were often attacked by riot-control policemen.

In an interview, Agriculture Minister Chung Woon-chun said that the policy will be pursued "with the maximum prudence, as it will take time for the U.S. to grasp the situation in Korea and gather opinions inside the industry." The government's policy is to ban import of beef from older cattle "under any circumstances, either through renegotiations between governments or self-regulation by importers."

U.S. bone-in beef from cattle slaughtered and processed according to Korea's new import regulations, the Quality System Assessment (QSA), is now sold in Korea but US beef is still not available in major supermarkets due to the perceived health risk.

The Seoul Southern District Court ordered MBC to air a correction by the popular MBC current affairs program "PD Notebook", saying that the report was partially wrong and exaggerated the threat of mad cow disease. The public anger towards resuming the beef deal is now regaining its composure as many people began to buy US beef. The market share of US beef currently stands (Sept 23) at 28.8% following Australian beef (top seller), but for 10-days prior to Korea's thanksgiving day, it was ranked the first among its competitors.

Relations with North Korea

On July 4, 2011 during a mass rally in Pyongyang Lee Myung Bak and his government were strongly criticized as traitors by spokesmen for the Korean People's Army and other elements of North Korean society. The Korean People's Army called for dealing "merciless deadly blows at the enemies till they are wiped out to the last man."

Diplomatic achievements

The South Korean Lee Myung-bak Administration, having the third year, made diplomatic breakthroughs in 2009 such as the successful bid to G-20 Summit, joining the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and winning UAE nuclear power plant order.

The G-20, accounting for 85% of the world GDP and two-thirds of world population, is made up of the G-7 countries of the U.S., Japan, the U.K., France, Germany, Canada, and Italy and non-G-7 members of Republic of Korea, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, and the European Union.

The decision of South Korea to hold the G20 summit in November 2010, which came amid the 2009 Pittsburgh summit, was passed unanimously. The Korean government placed significance on being the first non-G-8 country to take the chairmanship of the forum, hoping that hosting the high-profile event would raise the country's standing.

The country's admission to DAC has also considerable diplomatic importance. Representatives of the DAC member nations met at the OECD Secretariat in Paris, France in November 2009 and voted unanimously to admit South Korea as the 24th member. The DAC members provide more than 90 percent of the world's aid for impoverished developing nations, and South Korea is the only member nation that has gone from being an aid beneficiary to a donor.

It is noteworthy too that President Lee led to the export of $20 billon Korean standard nuclear power plant during his visit to the UAE at the end of 2009. President Lee's summit diplomacy is continuing to realize the Global Korea Vision.

President Lee participated in the 4th G20 summit in Toronto, Canada from June 26 to 28 and rallied support for his proposal on creating global financial safety nets and addressing development issues, which are the main topics of the upcoming summit in Seoul.

President Lee also held bilateral summits with the U.S., Japanese and Chinese leaders and discussed North Korean affairs. Diplomatic effort was also made related to the Navy vessel Cheonan by leading the joint declaration of G-8 leaders to condemn the North.

President Lee Myung-bak has eagerly made diplomatic tours of other countries and invited his foreign counterparts since he took the office. Data of President Lee's diplomatic outcome in 2009 shows that the president visited 14 countries, including the U.S. and Thailand on 11 occasions and had 38 summits. As a result, he laid the foundation for the country to emerge as the center of the world economy by successfully bidding for the G-20 Summit, one of the highest level economic cooperation bodies. It was just one month before the G-20 Summit in Seoul that President Lee succeeded in reflecting concerns over the sinking of the country's naval ship Cheonan in the Chair's Statement of Asia-Europe Meeting. He also attracted support of the ASEM level for the success of the G-20 Seoul Summit. Another diplomatic achievement of the president in ASEM was to win the member countries' backing for the South Korean government's stance on North Korea's nuclear issue and stability in Northeast Asia. In addition, President Lee urged Japanese Prime Minister Kan Naoto to put his words on August 15, Korea's Liberation Day into action. Regular reunions of the families separated by the Korean war drew attention as an international issue after being included in the Chair's Statement.

Under the Lee Myung-bak Administration, South Korea successfully concluded a free trade agreement with the European Union on July 1, 2011.

References

Additional reading

The Hankyoreh, Who is Lee Myung-bak?

The Korea Times, Economy-First Trademark Gives Lee Myung-bak Edge

The Chosun Ilbo, TIME Names Lee Myung-bak 'Hero of Environment'

Meet the Presidential Hopefuls: Lee Myung-bak at The Korea Times

Interview with the Korea IT Times, September 2005

Interview with the Korea Times, July 1, 2004

The Evolution of a Man Called ‘Bulldozer’ NYT, December 20, 2007

External links

Official website (in English)

Official website (in Korean)

Cyworld Minihomepage">Lee Myung-bak's Cyworld Minihomepage

Collection of links related to Lee Myung-bak

Korea Society Podcast: President Lee Myung-bak Addresses The Korea Society

Korea Society Podcast: Lee Myung-bak's First 100 Days in Office: Roots of a Summer of Discontent?

|years=2008–present}} |-

Category:1941 births Category:Living people Category:Mayors of Seoul Category:Current national leaders Category:Korea University alumni Category:Knights of Malta * Category:Members of the National Assembly of South Korea Category:People from Gyeongsangbuk-do Category:People from Osaka (city) Category:People from Pohang Category:People from Seoul Category:Presidents of South Korea Category:South Korean Presbyterians Category:Grand National Party politicians

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order	44th
office	President of the United States
term start	January 20, 2009
vicepresident	Joe Biden
predecessor	George W. Bush
birth date	August 04, 1961
birth place	Honolulu, Hawaii, United States
birthname	Barack Hussein Obama II
nationality	American
party	Democratic
spouse	Michelle Obama (m. 1992)
children	Malia (b.1998) Sasha (b.2001)
residence	The White House
alma mater	Occidental CollegeColumbia University (B.A.)Harvard Law School (J.D.)
profession	Community organizerAttorneyAuthorConstitutional law professorUnited States SenatorPresident of the United States
religion	Christian, former member of United Church of Christ
signature	Barack Obama signature.svg
website	WhiteHouse.gov
footnotes	}}

The Presidency of Barack Obama began at noon EST on January 20, 2009, when he became the 44th President of the United States. Obama was a United States Senator from Illinois at the time of his victory over Arizona Senator John McCain in the 2008 presidential election. Barack Obama is the first African-American president of the United States, as well as the first born in Hawaii.

His policy decisions have addressed a global financial crisis and have included changes in tax policies, legislation to reform the United States health care industry, foreign policy initiatives and the phasing out of detention of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. He attended the G-20 London summit and later visited U.S. troops in Iraq. On the tour of various European countries following the G-20 summit, he announced in Prague that he intended to negotiate substantial reduction in the world's nuclear arsenals, en route to their eventual extinction. In October 2009, Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

Transition period

The presidential transition period began following Obama's election to the presidency on November 4, 2008. The Obama-Biden Transition Project was co-chaired by John Podesta, Valerie Jarrett, and Pete Rouse. During the transition period, Obama announced his nominations for his Cabinet and administration. Shortly after the election on November 4, Obama chose Representative Rahm Emanuel of Illinois as White House Chief of Staff.

Cabinet nominations included former Democratic primary opponents Hillary Rodham Clinton for Secretary of State and Bill Richardson for Secretary of Commerce (although the latter withdrew on January 4, 2009). Obama appointed Eric Holder as his Attorney General, the first African-American appointed to that position. He also nominated Timothy F. Geithner to serve as Secretary of the Treasury. On December 1, Obama announced that he had asked Robert Gates to remain as Secretary of Defense, making Gates the first Defense head to carry over from a president of a different party. He nominated former Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Susan Rice to the United States Ambassador to the United Nations, which he restored to a Cabinet-level position.

During his transition, he maintained a website Change.gov, on which he wrote blogs to readers and uploaded video addresses by many of the members of his new cabinet. He announced strict rules for federal lobbyists, restricting them from financially contributing to his administration and forcing them to stop lobbying while working for him. The website also allowed individuals to share stories and visions with each other and the transition team in what was called the Citizen's Briefing Book, which was given to Obama shortly after his inauguration. Most of the information from Change.gov was transferred to the official White House website whitehouse.gov just after Obama's inauguration.

Inauguration

Barack Obama was inaugurated on January 20, 2009. He officially assumed the presidency at 12:00 noon, EST, and completed the oath of office at 12:05 PM, EST. He delivered his inaugural address immediately following his oath. After his speech, he went to the President's Room in the House Wing of the Capitol and signed three documents: a commemorative proclamation, a list of Cabinet appointments, and a list of sub-Cabinet appointments, before attending a luncheon with congressional and administration leaders and invited guests. To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of former President Abraham Lincoln, the same Bible that was used for Lincoln's inauguration was used in Obama's inauguration.

In administering the oath, Chief Justice John G. Roberts misplaced the word "faithfully" and erroneously replaced the phrase "President of the United States" with "President to the United States" before restating the phrase correctly; since Obama initially repeated the incorrect form, some scholars argued the President should take the oath again. On January 21, Roberts readministered the oath to Obama in a private ceremony in the White House Map Room, making him the seventh U.S. president to retake the oath; White House Counsel Greg Craig said Obama took the oath from Roberts a second time out of an "abundance of caution".

First 100 days

Expectations

Obama's 100th day in office was April 29, 2009. In his first post-election interview with ''60 Minutes'', Obama said that he has been studying Roosevelt's first 100 days, while adding, "The first hundred days is going to be important, but it's probably going to be the first thousand days that makes the difference."

Obama's first 100 days were highly anticipated ever since he became the presumptive nominee. Several news outlets created web pages dedicated to covering the subject. Commentators weighed in on challenges and priorities within domestic, foreign, economic, and environmental policy. CNN lists a number of economic issues that "Obama and his team will have to tackle in their first 100 days", foremost among which is passing and implementing a recovery package to deal with the financial crisis. Clive Stafford Smith, a British human rights lawyer, expressed hopes that the new president will close Guantanamo Bay detention camp in his first 100 days in office. After aides of the president announced his intention to give a major foreign policy speech in the capital of an Islamic country, there were speculations in Jakarta that he might return to his former home city within the first 100 days.

''The New York Times'' devoted a five-part series, which was spread out over two weeks, to anticipatory analysis of Obama's first hundred days. Each day, the analysis of a political expert was followed by freely edited blog postings from readers. The writers compared Obama's prospects with the situations of Franklin D. Roosevelt (January 16, Jean Edward Smith), John F. Kennedy (January 19, Richard Reeves), Lyndon B. Johnson (January 23, Robert Dallek), Ronald Reagan (January 27, Lou Cannon), and Richard Nixon.

Legislation and executive orders

Within minutes of taking the Oath of Office on January 20, Obama's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, issued an order suspending last-minute federal regulations pushed through by outgoing President George W. Bush, planning to review everything still pending. Due to the economic crisis, the President enacted a pay freeze for Senior White House Staff making more than $100,000 per year, as well as announcing stricter guidelines regarding lobbyists in an effort to raise the ethical standards of the White House. He asked for a waiver to his own new rules, however, for the appointments of William Lynn to the position of Deputy Defense Secretary, Jocelyn Frye to the position of director of policy and projects in the Office of the First Lady, and Cecilia Muñoz to the position of director of intergovernmental affairs in the executive office of the president, leading to some criticism of hypocrisy and violation of his pledge for governmental openness.

In his first week in office, Obama signed Executive Order 13492 suspending all the ongoing proceedings of Guantanamo military commission and ordering the detention facility to be shut down within the year. He also signed Executive Order 13491 - Ensuring Lawful Interrogations requiring the Army Field Manual to be used as a guide for terror interrogations, banning torture and other coercive techniques, such as waterboarding. Obama also issued an executive order entitled "Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel", setting stricter limitations on incoming executive branch employees and placing tighter restrictions on lobbying in the White House. Obama signed two Presidential Memoranda concerning energy independence, ordering the Department of Transportation to establish higher fuel efficiency standards before 2011 models are released and allowing states to raise their emissions standards above the national standard. He also ended the Mexico City Policy, which banned federal grants to international groups that provide abortion services or counseling.

In his first week he also established a policy of producing a weekly Saturday morning video address available on whitehouse.gov and YouTube, much like those released during his transition period. The first address had been viewed by 600,000 YouTube viewers by the next afternoon.

The first piece of legislation Obama signed was the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 on January 29, which revised the statute of limitations for filing pay discrimination lawsuits. Lilly Ledbetter joined Obama and his wife, Michelle, as he signed the bill, fulfilling his campaign pledge to nullify ''Ledbetter v. Goodyear''. On February 3, he signed the Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act (CHIP), expanding health care from 7 million children under the plan to 11 million.

| format = Ogg | type = speech }} After much debate, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was passed by both the House and Senate on February 13, 2009. Originally intended to be a bipartisan bill, the passage of the bill was largely along party lines. No Republicans voted for it in the House, and three moderate Republicans voted for it in the Senate (Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania). The bill combined tax breaks with spending on infrastructure projects, extension of welfare benefits, and education. The final cost of the bill was $787 billion, and almost $1.2 trillion with debt service included. Obama signed the Act into law on February 17, 2009, in Denver, Colorado.

On March 9, 2009, Obama lifted restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, and in doing so, called into question some of George W. Bush's signing statements. Obama stated that he too would employ signing statements if he deems upon review that a portion of a bill is unconstitutional, and he has issued several signing statements.

Early in his presidency, Obama signed a law raising the tobacco tax 62 cents on a pack of cigarettes. The tax is to be "used to finance a major expansion of health insurance for children", and "help some [smokers] to quit and persuade young people not to start".

In October 2011, Obama instituted the We Can't Wait program, which involved using executive orders, administrative rulemaking, and recess appointments to institute policies without the support of Congress. The initiative was developed in response to Congress's unwillingness to pass economic legislation proposed by Obama, and conflicts in Congress during the 2011 debt ceiling crisis.

Approval ratings and opinion

2009

After his transition period, Obama entered office with an approval rating of 82%. At the end of his first week, 68% of respondents in a Gallup poll approved of how Obama was handling his job, matching the early approval ratings of Dwight D. Eisenhower and trailing only John F. Kennedy in post-World War II presidents.

Throughout early February polls showed scattered approval ratings: 62% (CBS News), 64% (USA Today/Gallup), 66% (Gallup), and 76% in an outlier poll (CNN/Opinion Research). Gallup reported the congressional address in late February boosted his approval from a term-low of 59% to 67%.

Throughout autumn 2009, Rasmussen estimated Obama's approval as fluctuating between 45% and 52% and his disapproval between 48% and 54%; as of November 11, Pew Research estimated Obama's approval between 51% and 55% and his disapproval between 33% and 37% since July.

Handling of the economy

Rasmussen reported in mid-February 2009, that 55% of voters gave Obama good or excellent marks on his handling of the economy. In early March, a ''The Wall Street Journal'' survey of 49 economists gave Obama an average grade of 59 out of 100, with 42% of the respondents surveyed giving the administration's economic policies a grade below 60 percent. In comparison, only 30% of those same economists considered the response of governments around the world to the global recession to have been adequate. In April, a Gallup poll showed trust in Obama's economic policy with 71% saying they had "a fair amount" or "a great deal" of confidence in Obama's handling of the economy, higher than for Ben Bernanke, Tim Geithner, or leaders of Congress. Another Gallup poll in June showed 55% of Americans approved Obama's overall handling of the economy, but 48% and 51% disapproved of his handling of the federal budget deficit and controlling federal spending, respectively. A CBS News poll taken August 27–31 showed 53% of those polled approved of his handling of the economy. A Rasmussen poll taken on November 12 found 45% of Americans rating Obama's handling of the economy as poor and 39% rating him as doing a good or excellent job. They found 72% of Democrats rated his handling of the economy as good or excellent, while only 10% of Republicans and 27% of voters not affiliated with either party agreed.

2010

On March 25, 2010, following his signing of landmark health care reform legislation into law, Obama's polling was revealed by Bloomberg to be 50%, with higher marks for relations with other countries (58%) and his running of the war in Afghanistan (54%). "Obama's approval rating is roughly equal to what Bill Clinton had at this point in his presidency, according to data maintained by Gallup (and) higher than the 45 percent Ronald Reagan recorded in April 1982" and more favorable than Democrats or Republicans office in 2010. They found Obama's approval rating was at 85% among Democrats, compared with 46% among independents and 11% among Republicans.

Fox News released the results of two polls on April 8–9, 2010. The first showed a drop in Obama's approval rating to 43%, with 48% disapproving. In that poll, Democrats approved of Obama's performance 80–12%, while independents disapproved 49–38%. The other poll, which concentrated on the economy, showed disapproval of Obama's handling of the economy by a 53–42% margin, with 62% saying they were dissatisfied with the handling of the federal deficit. According to a Gallup Poll released April 10, 2010, President Obama had a 45% approval rating, with 48% disapproving. In a poll from Rasmussen Reports, released April 10, 2010, 47% approved of the President's performance, while 53% disapproved.

2011

Obama's approval rating jumped to a high following the death of Osama Bin Laden on May 2, 2011. A GfK poll conducted May 5, 2011 found his approval rating to be 60%. During the debt ceiling debate in August 2011, Obama's approval rating dropped to the low-40s.

Major legislation

2009

January 29: Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act

February 4: Children's Health Insurance Reauthorization Act

February 11: DTV Delay Act

February 17: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act

March 30: Omnibus Public Lands Management Act of 2009

April 21: Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act

May 20: Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act

May 20: Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009

May 22: Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure Act of 2009

June 22: Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act

August 6: Cash For Clunkers Extension Act

October 22: Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act

October 28: Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act

October 28: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010

October 30: Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act

November 6: Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009

2010

January 27: Emergency Aid to American Survivors of Haiti Earthquake Act

March 4: Travel Promotion Act

March 18: Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment Act (HIRE Act)

March 23: Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

March 30: Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010

May 5: Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act of 2010

May 17: Daniel Pearl Freedom of the Press Act

July 1: Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act

July 21: Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

July 22: Unemployment Compensation Extension Act of 2010

July 22: Improper Payments Elimination and Recovery Act of 2010

August 10: SPEECH Act of 2010

September 27: Small Business Jobs and Credit Act of 2010

December 9: Animal Crush Video Prohibition Act of 2010

December 13: Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010

December 17: Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010

December 22: Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010

2011

January 2: James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010 () January 4: Food Safety and Modernization Act, ,

January 7: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2011

August 2: Budget Control Act of 2011

December 31: National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012

Personnel

Cabinet appointees

Twenty-two members of the Obama administration are either in the United States Cabinet (15) or are in positions considered to be Cabinet-level (7). The members of the Cabinet are the heads of the fifteen major departments (State, Defense, Justice, etc.), and the seven cabinet-level positions are the Vice President, White House Chief of Staff, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, U.S. Trade Representative, Ambassador to the United Nations, and the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. Since Robert Gates was a member of the previous administration, his letter of resignation (a formality at the end of a President's term) was simply not accepted, and he did not need confirmation. On January 19, 2009, Senate Democratic leaders requested fifteen of the twenty positions to be ratified by unanimous consent, and seven gained unanimous confirmation by voice vote the next day: Ken Salazar, Steven Chu, Arne Duncan, Peter Orszag, Eric Shinseki, Tom Vilsack, and Janet Napolitano. On January 21, Obama presided over the swearing in of the seven unanimous nominees. Later that day, the Senate confirmed Hillary Clinton by a 94–2 vote. On January 22, several more confirmations were approved unanimously: Susan E. Rice, Ray LaHood, Lisa P. Jackson, and Shaun Donovan. On January 26, the Senate confirmed Geithner by a 60–34 margin.

At the conclusion of Obama's first week as President, Hilda Solis, Tom Daschle, Ron Kirk, and Eric Holder had yet to be confirmed, and there had been no second appointment for Secretary of Commerce. Holder was confirmed by a vote of 75–21 on February 2, and on February 3, Obama announced Senator Judd Gregg as his second nomination for Secretary of Commerce. Daschle withdrew later that day amid controversy over his failure to pay income taxes and potential conflicts of interest related to the speaking fees he accepted from health care interests. Solis was later confirmed by a vote of 80-17 on February 24, and Ron Kirk was confirmed on March 18 by a 92-5 vote in the Senate.

Gregg, who was the leading Republican negotiator and author of the TARP program in the Senate, after publication that he had a multi-million dollar investment in the Bank of America, on February 12, withdrew his nomination as Secretary of Commerce, citing "irresolvable conflicts" with President Obama and his staff over how to conduct the 2010 census and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. Former Washington governor Gary Locke was nominated on February 26 as Obama's third choice for Commerce Secretary and confirmed on March 24 by voice vote.

On March 2, Obama introduced Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius as his second choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services. He also introduced Nancy-Ann DeParle as head of the new White House Office of Health Reform, which he suggested would work closely with the Department of Health and Human Services. At the end of March, Sebelius was the only remaining Cabinet member yet to be confirmed.

Six high-ranking cabinet nominees in the Obama administration had their confirmations delayed or rejected among reports that they did not pay all of their taxes, including Tom Daschle, Obama's original nominee for Health and Human Services Secretary, and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Though Geithner was confirmed, and Senator Max Baucus, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, thought Daschle would have been confirmed, Daschle withdrew his nomination on February 3. Obama had nominated Nancy Killefer for the position of Chief Performance Officer, but Killefer also withdrew on February 3, citing unspecified problems with District of Columbia unemployment tax. A senior administration official said that Killefer's tax issues dealt with household help. Hilda Solis, Obama's nominee for Secretary of Labor, faced delayed confirmation hearings due to tax lien concerns pertaining to her husband's auto repair business, but she was later confirmed on February 24. While pundits puzzled over U.S. Trade Representative-designate Ron Kirk's failure to be confirmed by March 2009, it was reported on March 2 that Kirk owed over $10,000 in back taxes. Kirk agreed to pay them in exchange for Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus's aid in speeding up the confirmation process; he was later confirmed on March 18. On March 31, Kathleen Sebelius, Obama's nominee for Health and Human Services secretary, revealed in a letter to the Senate Finance Committee that her Certified Public Accountant found errors in her tax returns for years 2005-2007. She, along with her husband, paid more than $7,000 in back taxes, along with $878 in interest.

Notable non-Cabinet positions

Appointees serve at the pleasure of the President and were nominated by Barack Obama except as noted.

Chair of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation

*Sheila Bair¹ (2009–2011)

Special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan

*Richard Holbrooke (2009–2010)

*Marc Grossman (2011–present)

Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

* Retired General James L. Jones (2009–2011)

* Thomas E. Donilon (2011–present)

Special envoy to the Middle East

* George J. Mitchell (2009–2011)

* David Hale (2011–present)

Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation

* Robert Mueller² (2009–present)

Director of the Central Intelligence Agency

* Leon Panetta (2009–2011)

* Michael Morell (Acting-2011)

* David Petraeus (2011–present)

Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers

* Christina Romer (2009–2010)

* Austan Goolsbee (2010–2011)

* Alan Krueger (2011–present)

Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission

* Mary Schapiro (2009–present)

Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Director of National Economic Council

* Lawrence Summers (2009–2010)

* Gene Sperling (2011–present)

Chairman of the Economic Recovery Advisory Board

* Paul Volcker (2009–2011)

* ''Replaced by Council on Jobs and Competitiveness in 2011''

Chairperson of the Council on Jobs and Competitiveness

* Jeffrey R. Immelt (2011–present)

¹Appointed by George W. Bush in 2006 to a five-year term ²Appointed by George W. Bush in 2001 to a ten-year term

Judicial nominees

United States Supreme Court

Obama appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States: Sonia Sotomayor 2009 Elena Kagan 2010

Other courts

Outside of the Supreme Court, by October 2009, Obama had nominated fewer than two dozen judges to fill judicial vacancies, of which there were close to 100. This has prompted some Democrats to criticize the pace of Obama's judicial appointments as too slow. In December 2009, Senator Patrick Leahy criticized Republicans for stalling those judicial nominations that had been made, noting that the Senate confirmed more district and circuit court nominees during the first year of the George W. Bush administration than it had approved by that point during the Barack Obama presidency.

As of July 2010, Obama's nominees to the district and circuit courts had been confirmed at a rate of only 43.5 percent, compared to 87.2 percent during Bill Clinton's administration and 91.3 percent for George W. Bush. The Center for American Progress, which compiled the data, commented:

Judicial confirmations slowed to a trickle on the day President Barack Obama took office. Filibusters, anonymous holds, and other obstructionary tactics have become the rule. Uncontroversial nominees wait months for a floor vote, and even district court nominees—low-ranking judges whose confirmations have never been controversial in the past—are routinely filibustered into oblivion. Nominations grind to a halt in many cases even after the Senate Judiciary Committee has unanimously endorsed a nominee.

Policies

Economy

Upon entering office, Obama planned to center his attention on handling the global financial crisis. Even before his inauguration he lobbied Congress to pass an economic stimulus bill, which became the top priority during his first month in office. As President, Obama made a high profile trip to Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C. to dialog with Congressional Republicans and advocate for the bill. On February 17, 2009, Obama signed into law a $787 billion plan that included spending for health care, infrastructure, education, various tax breaks and incentives, and direct assistance to individuals. The tax provisions of the law reduced taxes for 98 per cent of taxpayers, bringing tax rates to their lowest levels in 60 years.

As part of the 2010 budget proposal, the Obama administration has proposed additional measures to attempt to stabilize the economy, including a $2–3 trillion measure aimed at stabilizing the financial system and freeing up credit. The program includes up to $1 trillion to buy toxic bank assets, an additional $1 trillion to expand a federal consumer loan program, and the $350 billion left in the Troubled Assets Relief Program. The plan also includes $50 billion intended to slow the wave of mortgage foreclosures. The 2011 budget includes a three-year freeze on discretionary spending, proposes several program cancellations, and raises taxes on high income earners to bring down deficits during the economic recovery.

In a July 2009 interview with ABC News, Biden was asked about the sustained increase of the U.S. unemployment rate from May 2007 to October 2009 despite the administration's multi-year economic stimulus package passed five months earlier. He responded "The truth is, we and everyone else, misread the economy. The figures we worked off of in January were the consensus figures and most of the blue chip indexes out there ... the truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited." The White House indicates that 2 million jobs were created or saved due to the stimulus package in 2009 and self reporting by recipients of the grants, loans, and contracts portion of the package report that the package saved or created 608,317 jobs in the final three months of 2009.

The unemployment rate rose in 2009, reaching a peak in October at 10.1% and averaging 10.0% in the fourth quarter. Following a decrease to 9.7% in the first quarter of 2010, the unemployment rate fell to 9.6% in the second quarter, where it remained for the rest of the year. Between February and December 2010, employment rose by 0.8%, which was less than the average of 1.9% experienced during comparable periods in the past four employment recoveries. GDP growth returned in the third quarter of 2009, expanding at a 1.6% pace, followed by a 5.0% increase in the fourth quarter. Growth continued in 2010, posting an increase of 3.7% in the first quarter, with lesser gains throughout the rest of the year. Overall, the economy expanded at a rate of 2.9% in 2010.

During November–December 2010, Obama and a lame duck session of the 111th Congress focused on a dispute about the temporary Bush tax cuts, which were due to expire at the end of the year. Obama wanted to extend the tax cuts for taxpayers making less than $250,000 a year. Congressional Republicans agreed but also wanted to extend the tax cuts for those making over that amount, and refused to support any bill that did not do so. All the Republicans in the Senate also joined in saying that, until the tax dispute was resolved, they would filibuster to prevent consideration of any other legislation, except for bills to fund the U.S. government. On 7 December, Obama strongly defended a compromise agreement he had reached with the Republican congressional leadership that included a two-year extension of all the tax cuts, a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance, a one-year reduction in the FICA payroll tax, and other measures. On December 10, Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) led a filibuster against the compromise tax proposal, which lasted over eight hours. Obama persuaded many wary Democrats to support the bill, but not all; of the 148 votes against the bill in the House, 112 were cast by Democrats and only 36 by Republicans. The $858 billion Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010, which ''The Washington Post'' called "the most significant tax bill in nearly a decade", passed with bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress and was signed into law by Obama on December 17, 2010.

Ethics

Lobbying reform

Early in his presidential campaign, Obama stated that "they [lobbyists] won't find a job in my White House", but softened his stance later in the campaign. On January 21, 2009, Obama issued an executive order for all future appointees to his administration, which stated, no appointee who was a registered lobbyist within the two years before his appointment could participate on matters in which he lobbied for a period of two years after the date of appointment. Three formal waivers were initially issued in early 2009, out of 800 executive appointments: to William J. Lynn III, a lobbyist for Raytheon, to hold the position of Deputy Secretary of Defense; to Jocelyn Frye, former general counsel at the National Partnership for Women and Families, to serve as Director of Policy and Projects in the Office of the First Lady; and to Cecilia Muñoz, former senior vice president for the National Council of La Raza, to serve as Director of Intergovernmental Affairs in the Executive Office of the President. As of March 21, 2009, at least thirty officials appointed by Obama had been lobbyists in the past five years. Ten additional waivers were announced in September 2009.

Not all recent former lobbyists require waivers; those without waivers write letters of recusal stating issues from which they must refrain because of their previous jobs. ''USA Today'' reported that 21 members of the Obama administration have at some time been registered as federal lobbyists, although most have not within the previous two years. Lobbyists in the administration include William Corr, an anti-tobacco lobbyist, as Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services and Tom Vilsack, who lobbied in 2007, for a national teachers union, as Secretary of Agriculture. Also, the Secretary of Labor nominee, Hilda Solis, formerly served as a board member of American Rights at Work, which lobbied Congress on two bills Solis co-sponsored, and Mark Patterson, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner's chief of staff, is a former lobbyist for Goldman Sachs.

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington have criticized the administration, claiming that Obama is retreating from his own ethics rules barring lobbyists from working on the issues about which they lobbied during the previous two years by issuing waivers. According to Melanie Sloan, the group's executive director, "It makes it appear that they are saying one thing and doing another."

Transparency

The Obama administration has said that all executive orders, non-emergency legislation, and proclamations will be posted to the official White House website, whitehouse.gov, allowing the public to review and comment for five days before the President signs the legislation. The pledge was twice broken during Obama's first month in office when he signed SCHIP legislation and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act with less than the full five days of "sunlight before signing". The administration has said that they are still "working through implementation procedures and some initial issues with the congressional calendar".

During his first week in office, Obama announced plans to post a video address each week on the site, and on YouTube, informing the public of government actions each week. During his speech at the 2008 Democratic National Convention, Obama stated, "I will also go through the federal budget, line by line, eliminating programs that no longer work and making the ones we do need work better and cost less - because we cannot meet twenty-first century challenges with a twentieth century bureaucracy."

On January 21, 2009, by executive order, Obama revoked Executive Order 13233, which had limited access to the records of former United States Presidents. Obama issued instructions to all agencies and departments in his administration to "adopt a presumption in favor" of Freedom of Information Act requests. In April 2009, the United States Department of Justice released four legal memos from the Bush administration to comply voluntarily with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union. The memos were written by John Yoo and signed by Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury, then Principal Assistant Attorneys General to the Department of Justice, and addressed to John A. Rizzo, general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency. The memos describe in detail controversial interrogation methods the CIA used on prisoners suspected of terrorism. Obama became personally involved in the decision to release the memos, which was opposed by former CIA directors Michael Hayden, Porter Goss, George Tenet and John Deutch. Former Vice President Dick Cheney criticized Obama for not releasing more memos; Cheney claimed that unreleased memos detail successes of CIA interrogations.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act requires all recipients of the funds provided by the act to publish a plan for using the funds, along with purpose, cost, rationale, net job creation, and contact information about the plan to a website Recovery.gov so that the public can review and comment. Inspectors General from each department or executive agency will then review, as appropriate, any concerns raised by the public. Any findings of an Inspector General must be relayed immediately to the head of each department and published on Recovery.gov.

On June 16, 2009, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration in order to get information about the visits of coal company executives. Anne Weismann, the chief counsel for CREW, stated "The Obama administration has now taken exactly the same position as the Bush administration... I don't see how you can keep people from knowing who visits the White House and adhere to a policy of openness and transparency." On June 16, MSNBC reported that its more comprehensive request for visitor logs since Obama's January 20 inauguration had been denied. The administration announced that White House visitor logs will be made available to the public on an ongoing basis, with certain limitations, for visits occurring after September 15, 2009. Beginning on January 29, 2010, the White House did begin to release the names of its visitor records. Since that time, names of visitors (which includes not only tourists, but also names of union leaders, Wall Street executives, lobbyists, party chairs, philanthropists and celebrities), have been released. The names are released in huge batches up to 75,000 names at a time. Names are released 90–120 days after having visited the White House. The complete list of names is available online by accessing the official White House website.

Obama stated during the 2008 Presidential campaign that he would have negotiations for health care reform televised on C-SPAN, citing transparency as being the leverage needed to ensure that people stay involved in the process taking place in Washington. This did not fully happen and Politifact gives President Obama a "Promise Broken" rating on this issue. After White House press secretary Robert Gibbs initially avoided addressing the issue, President Obama himself acknowledged that he met with Democratic leaders behind closed doors to discuss how best to garner enough votes in order to merge the two (House and Senate) passed versions of the health care bill. Doing this violated the letter of the pledge, although Obama maintains that negotiations in several congressional committees were open, televised hearings. Obama also cited an independent ethics watchdog group describe his administration as the most transparent in recent history.

The Obama administration has been characterized as much more aggressive than the Bush and other previous administrations in their response to whistleblowing and leaks to the press. Three people have been prosecuted under the rarely used Espionage Act of 1917. They include Thomas Andrews Drake, a former National Security Agency (NSA) employee who was critical of the NSA's Trailblazer Project, Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department contractor who allegedly had a conversation about North Korea with James Rosen of Fox News, and Jeffrey Sterling, who allegedly was a source for James Risen's book State of War. Risen has also been subpoenaed to reveal his sources, another rare action by the government.

Foreign policy

In his inaugural address, Obama suggested that he plans to begin the process of withdrawing from Iraq and continuing to focus on the war in Afghanistan. He also mentioned lessening the nuclear threat through "working tirelessly with old friends and former foes". He spoke about America's determination to combat terrorism, proclaiming America's spirit is "stronger and cannot be broken — you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you." To the Muslim world, Obama extended an invite to "a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect". He also said the USA would "extend a hand" to those "who cling to power through corruption and deceit" if they "are willing to unclench" their fists. Shortly after his inauguration President Obama first called President Abbas of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA). Calls were also made to President Mubarak of Egypt, Prime Minister Olmert of Israel and King Abdullah of Jordan. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton named George Mitchell as Special Envoy for Middle East peace and Richard Holbrooke as special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan on January 23, 2009. At the same time, Obama called on Israel to open the borders of Gaza, detailing early plans on his administration's peace plans for the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. On February 18, 2009, Obama announced that the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan would be bolstered by 17,000 new troops by summer. The announcement followed the recommendation of several experts including Defense Secretary Robert Gates that additional troops be deployed to the war-torn nation.

Obama declared his plan for ending the Iraq War on February 27, 2009, in a speech at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, before an audience of Marines stationed there. According to the president, combat troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by August 2010, leaving a contingent of up to 50,000 servicemen and servicewomen to continue training, advisory, and counterterrorism operations until as late as the end of 2011.

Other characteristics of the Obama administration on foreign policy include a tough stance on tax havens, continuing military operation in Pakistan, and avowed focus on diplomacy to prevent nuclear proliferation in Iran and North Korea.

On April 1, 2009, Obama and China's President, Hu Jintao, announced the establishment of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue and agreed to work together to build a positive, cooperative, and comprehensive U.S.-China relationship for the 21st century.

In that same month, Obama requested that Congress approve $83.4 billion of supplemental military funding, mostly for the war in Iraq and to increase troop levels in Afghanistan. The request also includes $2.2 billion to increase the size of the US military, $350 million to upgrade security along the US-Mexico border, and $400 million in counterinsurgency aid for Pakistan.

In May 2009, it was reported that Obama plans to expand the military by 20,000 employees.

On June 4, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University in Egypt. The wide ranging speech called for a "new beginning" in relations between the Islamic world and the United States. The speech received both praise and criticism from leaders in the region. In March 2010, Secretary of State Clinton criticized the Israeli government for approving expansion of settlements in East Jerusalem.

On April 8, 2010, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the latest Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), a "major" nuclear arms control agreement that reduces the nuclear weapons stockpiles of both countries.

In March 2011, international reaction to Muammar Gaddafi's military crackdown on rebel forces and civilians in Libya culminated in a United Nations resolution to enforce a no fly zone in Libya. Obama authorized U.S. forces to participate in international air attacks on Libyan air defenses using Tomahawk cruise missiles to establish the protective zone.

Guantánamo Bay detention camp

On his first day in office, Obama requested a 120-day suspension of all trials for alleged terrorists held at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, so the new administration could "review the military commissions process, generally, and the cases pending before military commissions , specifically". Another order established a task force to lead a review of detention policies, procedures and individual cases. Obama addressed the State Department that "the United States will not torture" and drafted an executive order to close Guantánamo within a year. On January 22, 2009, Obama signed an executive order ensuring safe, lawful, and humane treatment of individuals detained in armed conflicts. This order restricts interrogators to methods listed and authorized by an Army Field Manual. A detainee released since Obama took office claimed in an interview with Agence France-Presse that conditions at Guantánamo had worsened, stating guards wanted to "take their last revenge" before the facility is closed. On March 13, 2009, the administration announced that it would no longer refer to prisoners at Guantánamo Bay as enemy combatants, but it also asserted that the president has the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges.

The case review of detainee files by administration officials and prosecutors was made more difficult than expected as the Bush administration had failed to establish a coherent repository of the evidence and intelligence on each prisoner. By September 2009, prosecutors recommended to the Justice Department which detainees are eligible for trial, and the Justice Department and the Pentagon worked together to determine which of several now-scheduled trials will go forward in military tribunals and which in civilian courts. While 216 international terrorists are already held in maximum security prisons in the U.S., Congress was denying the administration funds to shut down the camp and adapt existing facilities elsewhere, arguing that the decision was "too dangerous to rush". In November, Obama stated that the U.S. would miss the January 2010 date for closing the Guantánamo Bay prison as he had ordered, acknowledging that he "knew this was going to be hard". Obama did not set a specific new deadline for closing the camp, citing that the delay was due to politics and lack of congressional cooperation. The state of Illinois has offered to sell to the federal government the Thomson Correctional Center, a new but largely unused prison, for the purpose of housing detainees. Federal officials testified at a December 23 hearing that if the state commission approves the sale for that purpose, it could take more than six months to ready the facility.

Killing of Osama bin Laden

Starting with information received in July 2010, intelligence developed by the CIA over the next several months determined what they believed to be the location of Osama bin Laden in a large compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, a suburban area 35 miles from Islamabad. CIA head Leon Panetta reported this intelligence to Obama in March 2011. Meeting with his national security advisers over the course of the next six weeks, Obama rejected a plan to bomb the compound, and authorized a "surgical raid" to be conducted by United States Navy SEALs. The operation took place on May 1, 2011, resulting in the death of bin Laden and the seizure of papers and computer drives and disks from the compound. Bin Laden's body was identified through DNA testing, and buried at sea several hours later. Within minutes of Obama's announcement from Washington, DC, late in the evening on May 1, there were spontaneous celebrations around the country as crowds gathered outside the White House, and at New York City's Ground Zero and Times Square. Reaction to the announcement was positive across party lines, including from predecessors George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, and from many countries around the world.

Overseas Contingency Operation

Obama discontinued use of the term "War on Terror" and instead uses the term "Overseas Contingency Operation". However, Obama has stated that the U.S. is at war with Al-Qaeda, saying "Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred."

In April 2010, the Obama administration took the extraordinary step of authorizing the targeted killing of an American citizen, the radical Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, who was believed to have shifted from encouraging attacks on the United States to directly participating in them.

Gun control

During the presidential campaign, Obama announced that he favors measures that respect Second Amendment rights, while at the same time keeping guns away from children and criminals. On February 25, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration would seek a new assault weapons ban across the United States, saying that it would have a positive impact on the drug-related violence in Mexico. After the statement drew criticism from the NRA and some House Democrats, the Administration reportedly ordered the Justice Department to end public discussion of the issue. Obama has signed into law two bills containing amendments reducing restrictions on gun owners, one which permits guns to be transported in checked baggage on Amtrak trains and another which allows carrying loaded firearms in national parks located in states allowing concealed carry.

Science and technology

Cybersecurity

Obama initiated a 60-day review of cybersecurity by Melissa Hathaway, a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton, appointed Acting Senior Director for Cyberspace.

''The New York Times'' reported in 2009, that the NSA is intercepting communications of American citizens including a Congressman, although the Justice Department believed that the NSA had corrected its errors. United States Attorney General Eric Holder resumed the wiretapping according to his understanding of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008 that Congress passed in July 2008, but without explaining what had occurred.

Environment

On January 27, 2009, Obama issued two presidential memoranda concerning energy policy. One directed the Department of Transportation to raise fuel efficiency standards incrementally to by 2020, and the other directed the Environmental Protection Agency to allow individual states to set stricter tailpipe emissions regulations than the federal standard.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 provides $54 billion in funds to double domestic renewable energy production, renovate federal buildings making them more energy-efficient, improve the nation's electricity grid, repair public housing, and weatherize modest-income homes.

On February 10, 2009, Obama overturned a Bush administration policy that had opened up a five-year period of offshore drilling for oil and gas near both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has been quoted as saying, "To establish an orderly process that allows us to make wise decisions based on sound information, we need to set aside" the plan "and create our own timeline".

On May 19, 2009, Obama announced a plan to increase the CAFE national standards for gasoline mileage, by creating a single new national standard that will create a car and light truck fleet in the United States that is almost 40 percent cleaner and more fuel-efficient by 2016, than it is today, with an average of 35.5 miles per gallon. Environmental advocates and industry officials welcomed the new program, but for different reasons. Environmentalists called it a long-overdue tightening of emissions and fuel economy standards after decades of government delay and industry opposition. Auto industry officials said it would provide the single national efficiency standard they have long desired, a reasonable timetable to meet it and the certainty they need to proceed with product development plans.

On March 30, 2010, Obama partially reinstated Bush administration proposals to open certain offshore areas along the Atlantic coastline, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and the north coast of Alaska to oil and natural gas drilling. The proposals had earlier been set aside by President Obama after they were challenged in court on environmental grounds.

On May 27, 2010, Obama extended a moratorium on offshore drilling permits after the April 20, 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill which is considered to be the worst oil spill in U.S. history. Although BP took responsibility for the disaster and its ongoing after effects, Obama began a federal investigation along with forming a bipartisan commission to review the incident and methods to avoid it in the future. Obama visited the Gulf Coast on May 2 and May 28 and expressed his frustration on the June 8 ''NBC Today Show'', by saying "I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick." Obama's response to the disaster has drawn confusion and criticism within segments of the media and public.

NASA

Obama set up the Augustine panel to review the Constellation program in 2009, and announced in February 2010, that he was cutting the program from the 2011 United States federal budget, describing it as "over budget, behind schedule, and lacking in innovation." After the decision drew criticism in the United States, a new "Flexible path to Mars" plan was unveiled at a space conference in April 2010. It included new technology programs, increased R&D; spending, a focus on the International Space Station and contracting out flying crew to space to commercial providers. The new plan also increased NASA's 2011 budget to $19 billion from $18.3 billion in 2010.

In July 2009, Obama appointed Charles Bolden, a former astronaut, to be administrator of NASA.

Stem cell research

On March 9, 2009, Obama repealed a Bush-era policy that prevented federal tax dollars from being used to fund research on new lines of embryonic stem cells. Such research has been a matter of debate between those who emphasize the therapeutic potential of such research and those who suggest that elements of this research breach ethical limitations. Obama stated that "In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values...In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research — and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly."

Social policy

On January 23, 2009, Obama rescinded the Mexico City Policy, a measure from the Reagan and Bush eras that required any non-governmental organization receiving U.S. Government funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services in other countries.

On June 17, 2009, Obama authorized the extension of some benefits (but not health insurance or pension benefits) to same-sex partners of federal employees. Obama has chosen to leave larger changes, such as the repeal of Don't ask, don't tell and the Defense of Marriage Act, to Congress.

On October 19, 2009, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a directive to federal prosecutors in states with medical marijuana laws not to investigate or prosecute cases of marijuana use or production done in compliance with those laws.

On December 16, 2009, President Obama signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2010, which repealed a 21-year-old ban on federal funding of needle exchange programs.

On December 22, 2010, Obama signed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010, a bill that provides for repeal of the Don't ask, don't tell policy of 1993, that has prevented gay and lesbian people from serving openly in the United States Armed Forces. Repealing "Don't ask, don't tell" had been a key campaign promise that Obama had made during the 2008 presidential campaign.

Health care reform

Once the stimulus bill was enacted, health care reform became Obama's top domestic priority. On July 14, 2009, House Democratic leaders introduced a 1,000 page plan for overhauling the US health care system, which Obama wanted Congress to approve by the end of the year.

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated the ten-year cost to the federal government of the major insurance-related provisions of the bill at approximately $1.0 trillion. In mid-July 2009, Douglas Elmendorf, director of the CBO, testified that the proposals under consideration would significantly increase federal spending and did not include the "fundamental changes" needed to control the rapid growth in health care spending. However after reviewing the final version of the bill introduced after 14 months of debate the CBO estimated that it would reduce federal budget deficits by $143 billion over 10 years and by more than a trillion in the next decade.

After much public debate during the Congressional summer recess of 2009, Obama delivered a speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9 where he addressed concerns over his administration's proposals. In March 2010, Obama gave several speeches across the country to argue for the passage of health care reform. On March 21, 2010, after Obama announced an executive order reinforcing the current law against spending federal funds for elective abortion services, the House, by a vote of 219 to 212, passed the version of the bill previously passed on December 24, 2009, by a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. The bill, which includes over 200 Republican amendments, was passed without a single Republican vote. On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the bill into law. Immediately following the bill's passage, the House voted in favor of a reconciliation measure to make significant changes and corrections to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was passed by both houses with two minor alterations on March 25, 2010, and signed into law on March 30, 2010.

Education reform

On March 30, 2010, Obama signed the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, which ended the role of private banks in lending out federally-insured student loans. By directly lending to students, the government is projected to save taxpayers $68 billion dollars over the next several years. Federally-insured student loans will instead be distributed by the Department of Education. The law also increased the amount of Pell Grant awards given each year, doubling its current funding. Starting in 2014, the law permits borrowers to cap the amount they spend on student loans each year to ten percent of their discretionary income and have their balance forgiven if they have faithfully paid the balance of their loan over 20 years. Additionally, the law seeks to make it easier for parents to qualify for Grad PLUS loans, and spends billions on poor and minority schools and $2 billion for community colleges.

Gates arrest controversy

On July 16, 2009, prominent African American Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home by a local white police officer, Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, for disorderly conduct. Gates, who was locked out of his house, had attempted to break into his own property, thus causing the initial alarm from a neighbor who called 9-1-1. The incident sparked national controversy over whether Gates's civil rights had been violated by Crowley. On July 21, the Cambridge Police Department dropped charges against Gates. On July 22, President Barack Obama, commented on the incident over national and international television, criticized the arrest, and stated the police acted "stupidly" in handling the incident. National law enforcement organizations and members objected to Obama's comments and criticized his handling of the issue. In the aftermath, Obama stated that he regretted his comments exacerbating the situation, and hoped that the situation could become a "teachable moment". To reduce tensions, on July 24, Obama invited both parties to the White House to discuss the issue over beers, and on July 30, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden joined Crowley and Gates in a private, cordial meeting in a courtyard near the White House Rose Garden; this became known colloquially as the "Beer Summit".

Wall Street reform

On July 21, 2010, Obama signed Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, considered to be the largest financial system overhaul since the New Deal. The law recognizes complex financial derivatives and makes rules to protect consumers from unfair practices in loans and credit cards by establishing a new consumer protection agency. At the signing ceremony in the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington D.C. Obama proclaimed, "There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts. Period." Obama also mentioned that "These reforms represent the strongest consumer financial protections in history." At the ceremony were Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., the two committee chairmen who sponsored the bill.

2010 midterm elections

Due in large part to voter frustration over high unemployment and a stalled economy, Republicans won control of the House in the 2010 midterm elections. On reflection after the election, Obama blamed himself, in part, for the many Democrats who went down to defeat knowing that they had risked their careers to support his agenda of economic stimulus legislation and a landmark health care bill. Democrats narrowly retained the Senate majority and will continue to control it through the 112th Congress.

Obama called the elections "humbling" and a "shellacking". He said that the results came because not enough Americans had felt the effects of the economic recovery.

2012 re-election campaign

On April 4, 2011, President Obama announced that he would seek re-election in the 2012 presidential election. The campaign will be based in Chicago and is being run by many former members of the White House staff and members of the successful 2008 campaign.

References

External links

"Obama's People" (photography: Nadav Kander)

The Official White House YouTube page

"President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address". The White House.

"Wrapping Up Open for Questions". The White House.

"President Obama's State of the Union Address" C-SPAN.

Obama, Barack

cs:Vláda Baracka Obamy es:Administración Obama fr:Présidence de Barack Obama ko:버락 오바마 행정부 sw:Urais wa Barack Obama no:Barack Obamas regjering ru:Президентство Барака Обамы sv:Obamas kabinett th:การดำรงตำแหน่งประธานาธิบดีของบารัก โอบามา

Name	Lee Teng-hui
Order	President of the Republic of China
Term start	13 January 1988
Term end	20 May 2000
Predecessor	Chiang Ching-kuo
Successor	Chen Shui-bian
Vicepresident	Li Yuan-tsuLien Chan
Order2	Vice President of the Republic of China
Term start2	20 May 1984
Term end2	13 January 1988
President2	Chiang Ching-kuo
Predecessor2	Hsieh Tung-ming
Successor2	Li Yuan-tsu
Order3	Chairman of the Kuomintang
Term start3	1988
Term end3	2000
Predecessor3	Chiang Ching-kuo
Successor3	Lien Chan
Nationality	Republic of China
Birth date	January 15, 1923
Birth place	Sanzhi, New Taipei, Taiwan (Taihoku Prefecture, Japan at that time)
Spouse	Tseng Wen-hui
Party	Kuomintang (1971 – 2000)
Alma mater	National Taiwan UniversityIowa State UniversityCornell University (Ph.D.)
Religion	Christian (Presbyterian) }}

Lee Teng-hui (; born 15 January 1923) is a politician of the Republic of China (commonly known as Taiwan). He was the 7th, 8th, and 9th-term President of the Republic of China and Chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1988 to 2000. He presided over major advancements in democratic reforms including his own re-election which marked the first direct presidential election for the Republic of China. The first native Taiwanese to become ROC president and KMT chairman, Lee promoted the Taiwanese localization movement and led an aggressive foreign policy to gain diplomatic allies. Critics accused him of betraying the party he headed, secret support of Taiwanese independence, and involvement in corruption (black gold politics).

After leaving office Lee was expelled from the KMT for his role in founding the pro-independence Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU), which forms part of the Pan-Green Coalition alongside Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party. (Lee is considered the "spiritual leader" of the TSU.) Lee has been outspoken in support for Taiwanese independence though not necessarily a formal declaration.

Early life and education

Lee was born to a Hakka family in the rural farming community of Sanzhi (Sanshi-kyō), Taipei County (Taihoku, now New Taipei City), Taiwan (under Japanese rule at that time). As a child, he often dreamed of traveling abroad, and became an avid stamp collector. Growing up during the Japanese rule of Taiwan, he developed a strong affinity for Japan. His father was a middle-level Japanese police aide and his brother served and died in the Imperial Japanese Navy. Lee—one of only four Taiwanese students in his high school class—graduated with honors and was given a scholarship to Japan's Kyoto Imperial University, then known as Kyoto Technical School. A lifelong collector of books, Lee was heavily influenced by Japanese thinkers like Nitobe Inazo and Nishida Kitaro in Kyoto. In 1944 he too volunteered for service in the Imperial Japanese Army and became a second lieutenant officer of an anti-aircraft gun in Taiwan. He was ordered back to Japan in 1945 and participated in the clean-up after the great Tokyo firebombing of March, 1945. Lee stayed in Japan after the surrender and graduated from Kyoto University in 1946.

After World War II, after the Republic of China took over Taiwan, Lee enrolled in the National Taiwan University, where in 1948 he earned a bachelor's degree in agricultural science. Lee joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in September 1946, apparently briefly. He participated in the 228 Incident during this time. According to Wu Ketai, who inducted Lee into the Communist Party, the KMT was aware that Lee had been a Communist, but deliberately destroyed the records when Lee was promoted to the vice-presidency to protect his image. In a 2002 interview Lee himself admitted that he had been a communist. In that same interview Lee said that he has strongly opposed communism for a long time because he understands the theory well and knows that it is doomed to fail. Lee stated that he joined the Communist out of hatred for the KMT.

In 1953, Lee received a master's degree in agricultural economics from the Iowa State University in the United States. Lee returned to Taiwan in 1957 as an economist with the Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction (JCRR), an institution sponsored by the U.S. and aimed at modernizing Taiwan's agricultural system and at land reform. During this period, he also worked as an adjunct professor in the Department of Economics at National Taiwan University and taught at the Graduate School of East Asian Studies at National Chengchi University.

In the mid-1960s Lee returned to the United States, and earned a PhD in agricultural economics from Cornell University in 1968. Lee's doctoral dissertation, ''Intersectoral Capital Flows in the Economic Development of Taiwan, 1895-1960'' (published as a book under the same name) was honored as the year's best doctoral thesis by the American Association of Agricultural Economics and remains an influential work on Taiwan's economy during the Japanese and early KMT periods.

Lee encountered Christianity as a young man and in 1961 was baptised. For most of the rest of his political career, despite holding high office, Lee has made a habit of giving sermons at churches around Taiwan, mostly on apolitical themes of service and humility.

Lee speaks Taiwanese, Japanese, Mandarin, and American English.

Rise to power

Shortly after returning to Taiwan, Lee joined the KMT in 1971 and was made a cabinet minister without portfolio responsible for agriculture.

In 1978 Lee was appointed Mayor of Taipei, where he solved water shortages and improved the city's irrigation problems. In 1981, he became governor of Taiwan Province and made further irrigation improvements.

As a skilled technocrat, Lee soon caught the eye of President Chiang Ching-kuo as a strong candidate to serve as Vice President. Chiang sought to move more authority to the ''bensheng ren'' (residents on Taiwan before 1949 and their descendants) instead of continuing to promote ''waisheng ren'' (mainland Chinese immigrants who arrived in Taiwan after 1949 and their descendants) as his father had. President Chiang nominated Lee to become his Vice President. Lee was formally elected by the National Assembly in 1984.

Presidency

Chiang Ching-kuo died in January 1988 and Lee succeeded him as President. The "Palace Faction" of the KMT, a group of conservative mainlanders headed by General Hau Pei-tsun, Premier Yu Guo-hwa, and Education Minister Lee Huan, was deeply distrustful of Lee Teng-hui and sought to block his accession to the KMT chairmanship and sideline him as a figurehead. With the help of James Soong—himself a member of the Palace Faction—who quieted the hardliners with the famous plea "Each day of delay is a day of disrespect to Ching-kuo," Lee was allowed to ascend to the chairmanship unobstructed. At the KMT party congress of July 1988, Lee named 31 members of the Central Committee, 16 of whom were --''bensheng ren'': for the first time, ''bensheng ren'' held a majority in what was then a powerful policy-making body.

As he consolidated power during the early years of his presidency, Lee allowed his rivals within the KMT to occupy positions of influence: when Yu Guo-hwa retired as premier in 1989, he was replaced by Lee Huan, who was succeeded by Hau Pei-tsun in 1990. At the same time, Lee made a major reshuffle of the Executive Yuan, as he had done with the KMT Central Committee, replacing several elderly ''waisheng ren'' with younger ''bensheng ren'', mostly of technical backgrounds. Fourteen of these new appointees, like Lee, received Ph.D.s in the United States. Prominent among the appointments were Lien Chan as foreign minister, and Shirley Kuo as finance minister.

1990 saw the arrival of the Wild Lily student movement on behalf of full democracy for Taiwan. Thousands of Taiwanese students demonstrated for democratic reforms. The demonstrations culminated in a sit-in demonstration by over 300,000 students at Memorial Square in Taipei. Students called for direct elections of the national president and vice president and for a new election for all legislative seats. On 21 March Lee welcomed some of the students to the Presidential Building. He expressed his support of their goals and pledged his commitment to full democracy in Taiwan. The moment is regarded by supporters of democracy in Taiwan as perhaps his finest moment in office. Gatherings recalling the student movement are regularly held around Taiwan every 21 March.

In May 1991 Lee spearheaded a drive to eliminate the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of Communist Rebellion, laws put in place following the KMT arrival in 1949 that suspended the democratic functions of the government. In December 1991 the original members of the Legislative Yuan, elected to represent mainland China constituencies in 1948, were forced to resign and new elections were held to apportion more seats to the bensheng ren. The elections forced Hau Pei-tsun from the premiership, a position he was given in exchange for his tacit support of Lee. He was replaced by Lien Chan, then an ally of Lee.

The prospect of the first island-wide democratic election the next year, together with Lee's June 1995 visit to Cornell University, sparked the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis. The previous eight presidents and vice-presidents of Taiwan had been elected by the members of the National Assembly. For the first time Taiwan's leader would be elected by majority vote of Taiwan's population. The People's Republic of China conducted a series of missile tests in the waters surrounding Taiwan and other military maneuvers off the coast of Fujian in response to what Communist Party leaders described as moves by Lee to "split the motherland." The PRC government launched another set of tests just days before the election, sending missiles over the island to express its dissatisfaction should the Taiwanese people vote for Lee. The military actions disrupted trade and shipping lines and caused a temporary dip in the Asian stock market. Ironically, the 1996 missile launches boosted support for Lee instead.

On 23 March 1996, Lee became the first popularly elected ROC president with 54% of the vote. Many people who worked or resided in other countries made special trips back to the island to vote. In addition to the president, the governor of Taiwan Province and the mayors of Taipei and Kaohsiung (as leaders of provincial level divisions they were formerly appointed by the president) became popularly elected.

Lee, in an interview that same year, expressed his view that a special state-to-state relationship existed between Taiwan and mainland China that all negotiations between the two sides of the Strait needed to observe.

Lee, observing constitutional term limits he had helped enact, stepped down from the presidency at the end of his term in 2000. That year Democratic Progressive Party candidate Chen Shui-bian won the national election with 39% of the vote in a three-way race. Chen's victory marked an end to KMT rule and the first peaceful transfer of power in Taiwan's new democratic system.

Supporters of rival candidates Lien Chan and James Soong accused Lee of setting up the split in the KMT that had enabled Chen to win. Lee had promoted the uncharismatic Lien over the popular Soong as the KMT candidate. Soong had subsequently ran as an independent and was expelled from the KMT. The number of votes garnered by both Soong and Lien would have accounted for approximately 60% of the vote while individually the candidates placed behind Chen. Protests were staged in front of the KMT party headquarters in Taipei. Fuelling this anger were the persistent suspicions following Lee throughout his presidency that he secretly supported Taiwan independence and that he was intentionally sabotaging the Kuomintang from above. Lee resigned his chairmanship on 24 March and was expelled as a party member in December of the same year. KMT officials expressed dissatisfaction with efforts to "localize" the KMT and his tacit support of the new Chen administration.

Since leaving office Lee and the new party he went on to found, the TSU, have generally supported "green" causes in Taiwan. Lee continues to travel, make speeches, campaign for TSU candidates, and offer independent-minded commentary on Taiwan politics. Lee Teng-Hui University in Taiwan is named after him.

Taiwanization

Lee Teng-hui, during his term as president, supported Taiwanization. The Taiwanization movement has its roots in the home rule and independence groups founded during the Japanese era and sought to put emphasis on Taiwan as the center of people's lives as opposed to China or Japan. During the Chiang regime, China was promoted as the center of an ideology that would build a Chinese national outlook in a people who had once considered themselves Japanese subjects. Taiwan was often relegated to a backwater province of China in the KMT-supported history books. People were discouraged from studying local Taiwanese customs, which were to be replaced by mainstream Chinese customs. Lee sought to turn Taiwan into a center rather than an appendage. This shift was widely supported in Taiwan and found expression in Taiwanese literature movement. He further stated that he believed a Chinese identity and a Taiwanese identity were ultimately incompatible, a notion controversial in the KMT, even among those members who generally supported Taiwanization.

Positions

Since resigning the chairmanship of the KMT, Lee has campaigned actively on behalf of pan-green coalition candidates and opposed candidates of his former party who took pro-unification positions during the 2004 presidential elections. He has stated a number of political positions and ideas which he did not mention while he was President, but which he appeared to have privately maintained.

Lee has publicly supported the Name Rectification Campaigns in Taiwan and proposed changing the name of the country from the Republic of China to the Republic of Taiwan. He generally opposes unlimited economic ties with mainland China, though he supports trade.

Lee has also stated that he believes that Taiwan cannot avoid being assimilated into the People's Republic of China unless it completely rejects its historical Chinese identity and that he believes that it is essential that Taiwanese unite and develop a unified and separate identity other than the Chinese one. Furthermore, in reference to Mainlanders, he believes that to be truly Taiwanese, one must assume a "New Taiwanese" identity.

He dismisses both the notion that the strategy will trigger an invasion by the Chinese government and the notion that Taiwan benefits economically by developing economic ties with China. He argues the People's Republic of China is a paper tiger and both its military strength and economic strength have been far overestimated. Lee asserts that when presented with a united and assertive Taiwan, Taiwan will receive support from the international community and also from the United States and that the PRC will be obliged to back down. He also believes that the PRC economy is doomed to collapse and that unlimited integration with the PRC economy, on the part of Taiwan or any country, is unwise.

During the 2004 Presidential campaign, President Chen Shui-bian publicly campaigned with Lee Teng-hui and developed a campaign platform, including a call for a new constitution adopted by referendum, which could be interpreted as an opportunity to make the symbolic changes which Lee supports. There was concern in the United States and in the People's Republic of China that Chen would be supportive of Lee's positions, a belief which was reinforced by Lee's own actions while President and by Lee's public statements that Chen Shui-bian agreed with him.

The concern shared between the United States and the People's Republic of China was the possible unilateral change of the cross-strait status quo by President Chen, leading to a public rebuke of Chen from the United States President George W. Bush in December 2003. It is believed that this rebuke in part was intended to challenge the notion, which Lee had advanced, that American support of Taiwan was unconditional. After his close election in March 2004, Chen moved to distance himself from Lee, by stating explicitly that his regime's constitutional reforms would not rename "The Republic of China" to Taiwan. The difference in the two leader's positions was further highlighted by Chen's stated intent to establish greater economic links with China.

In February 2007 Lee shocked the media when he announced that he has never backed Taiwanese independence, when he was widely seen as the spiritual leader of the movement. Lee also said that he supported opening up trade and tourism with China, a position he had opposed before. Lee later explained that Taiwan already enjoys ''de facto'' independence and that political maneuvering over details of expressing it is counterproductive. He maintains that "Taiwan should seek 'normalization' by changing its name and amending its constitution."

Japanese support

Lee enjoys a warm relationship with the people and culture of Japan. Lee often assures Taiwanese audiences that Japan will support Taiwan if it formally announces its Taiwan independence. Taiwan was colonized by Japan from 1895 to 1945 and natives of the island who grew up in that period, such as Lee, attended schools where Japanese language, songs, and stories were taught. Lee's father was a low-level Japanese police aide; his older brother died serving in the Imperial Japanese Navy in World War II and is listed in Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo. During his youth Lee had a Japanese name, Iwasato Masao (岩里政男). Lee speaks fondly of his upbringing and his teachers and has been welcomed in visits to Japan since leaving office. Lee's admiration and enjoyment of all things Japanese has been the target of criticism from both the Pan-Green Coalition and Pan-Blue Coalition in Taiwan, as well as from mainland China, due to the anti-Japanese sentiment formed during and after World War II.

In his retirement Lee became the first former president of a country known to participate in cosplay. The cosplay was centered on Heihachi Edajima (江田島平八 ''Edajima Heihachi''), a hawkish principal of a boarding school in the Japanese manga ''Sakigake!! Otokojuku'' (魁!!男塾) (Weekly Shōnen Jump). His cosplay interest and eponymous "school" called "輝！李塾" was mentioned on his personal website, beginning in late 2004. This manga comic was a comedy centered on a fictitious reform school for contemporary boys, modelled under the Imperial Japanese Army.

In a May 2007 trip to Japan, Lee visited the Yasukuni Shrine to pay tribute to his older brother. Controversy rose because the Shrine also enshrines World War II Class A criminals among the other soldiers. He is also expected to receive the first Shimpei Goto award, named after the former Japanese colonial governor of Taiwan, and to give a speech on 7 June regarding the global situation after 2007.

Indictment

On 30 June, 2011, Lee, along with former KMT financier Liu Tai-Ying were indicted on graft and money-laundering charges and accused of embezzling US$7.79 million in public funds.

See also

President of the Republic of China

History of the Republic of China

Politics of the Republic of China

Special state-to-state relations

Kuomintang

References

External links

Biography from Office of the President, ROC

Friends of Lee Teng-Hui Association

Lee Teng-Hui Academy

America and Taiwan, 1943-2004

Cornell University Magazine Profile

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zh-min-nan:Lí Teng-hui cs:Lee Teng-hui de:Lee Teng-hui et:Lee Teng-hui es:Lee Teng-hui fr:Li Tenghui hak:Lí Tên-Fî ko:리덩후이 id:Lee Teng-hui it:Lee Teng-hui ms:Lee Teng-Hui my:လီတိန်းဟွေး nl:Lee Teng-hui ja:李登輝 no:Lee Teng-hui pl:Lee Teng-hui pt:Lee Teng-hui ru:Ли Дэнхуэй fi:Li Denghui sv:Lee Teng-hui uk:Лі Ден Хуей vi:Lý Đăng Huy war:Lee Teng-hui zh:李登輝

name	Ban Ki-moon
order	8th
title	Secretary-General of the United Nations
term start	January 1, 2007
deputy	Asha-Rose Migiro
predecessor	Kofi Annan
title2	33rd Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of South Korea
term start2	January 17, 2004
term end2	November 10, 2006
president2	Roh Moo-hyun
primeminister2	Goh KunLee Hae ChanHan Duck-sooHan Myeong-sook
predecessor2	Yoon Young Kwan
successor2	Song Min-soon
birth date	June 13, 1944
birth place	Eumseong County, Chungcheongbuk-do, Korea, Empire of Japan
nationality	South Korean
spouse	Yoo Soon-taek
signature	Ban Ki Moon Signature.svg
religion	No public affiliation
alma mater	Seoul National University (B.A.)Harvard University (M.P.A.) }}

title	Korean name
tablewidth	265
color	lavender
hangul	반기문
hanja	潘基文
rr	Ban Gimun
mr	Pan Kimun
text	}}

Ban Ki-moon (, Hanja: ; born 13 June 1944) is the eighth and current Secretary-General of the United Nations, after succeeding Kofi Annan in 2007. Before going on to be Secretary-General, Ban was a career diplomat in South Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and in the United Nations. He entered diplomatic service the year he graduated from university, accepting his first post in New Delhi, India. In the foreign ministry he established a reputation for modesty and competence.

Ban was the Foreign Minister of the Republic of Korea from January 2004 to November 2006. In February 2006, he began to campaign for the office of Secretary-General. Ban was initially considered to be a long shot for the office. As foreign minister of South Korea, however, he was able to travel to all of the countries that were members of the United Nations Security Council, a maneuver that turned him into the front runner.

On 13 October 2006, he was elected to be the eighth Secretary-General by the United Nations General Assembly and officially succeeded Annan on 1 January 2007. Ban has led several major reforms regarding peacekeeping and UN employment practices. Diplomatically, Ban has taken particularly strong views on Darfur, where he helped persuade Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir to allow peacekeeping troops to enter Sudan; and on global warming, pressing the issue repeatedly with former U.S. President George W. Bush. Ban has received strong criticism from OIOS, the UN internal audit unit, stating that the secretariat, under Ban's leadership, is "drifting into irrelevance".

In 2011, Ban ran unopposed for a second term as Secretary-General. On 21 June 2011, he was unanimously re-elected by the General Assembly and therefore will continue to serve until 31 December 2016.

Biography

Ban was born in Eumseong in a small farming village in North Chungcheong, in 1944 at the end of the Japanese rule of Korea. His family moved to the nearby town of Chungju, where he was raised. During Ban's childhood, his father had a warehouse business, but the warehouse went bankrupt and the family lost its middle-class standard of living. When Ban was six, his family fled to a remote mountainside for the duration of the Korean War. After the war ended, his family returned to Chungju. Ban has mentioned meeting U.S. military troops at this time.

In secondary school (Chungju High School), Ban became a star pupil, particularly in his studies of English. In 1952, he was selected by his class to address a message to then UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld, but it is unknown if the message was ever sent. In 1962, Ban won an essay contest sponsored by the Red Cross and earned a trip to the United States where he lived in San Francisco with a host family for several months. As part of the trip, Ban met U.S. President John F. Kennedy. When a journalist at the meeting asked Ban what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said, "I want to become a diplomat."

Ban received a B.A. in the International Relations from Seoul National University in 1970, and earned a Master of Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in 1985. At Harvard, he studied under Joseph Nye who remarked that Ban had "a rare combination of analytic clarity, humility and perseverance." Ban was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws (Honoris Causa) by the University of Malta on 22 April 2009. He further received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from the University of Washington in October 2009.

In addition to his native Korean, Ban speaks English, French, and Japanese. There have been questions, however, regarding the extent of his knowledge of French, one of the two working languages of the United Nations Secretariat.

Families

Ban Ki-moon met Yoo Soon-taek in 1962 when they were both high school students. Ban was 18 years old, and Yoo Soon-taek was his secondary school's student council president. Ban Ki-moon married Yoo Soon-taek in 1971. They have three adult children: two daughters and a son. His elder daughter, Seon-yong, was born in 1972 and now works for the Korea Foundation in Seoul. She is married to an Indian. His son, Woo-hyun was born in 1974 in India. He received an MBA from Anderson School of Management at University of California, Los Angeles, and works for an investment firm in New York. His younger daughter, Hyun-hee (born 1976), is a field officer for UNICEF in Nairobi. After his election as Secretary-General, Ban became an icon in his hometown, where his extended family still resides. Over 50,000 gathered in a soccer stadium in Chungju for celebration of the result. In the months following his election, thousands of practitioners of feng shui went to his village to determine how it produced such an important person. Ban himself is not a member of any church or religious group and has declined to expound his beliefs: "Now, as Secretary-General, it will not be appropriate at this time to talk about my own belief in any particular religion or God. So maybe we will have some other time to talk about personal matters." His mother is a Buddhist.

Personality

In the Korean Foreign Ministry his nickname was ''Ban-jusa'', meaning "the Bureaucrat" or "the administrative clerk." The name was used as both positive and negative: complimenting Ban's attention to detail and administrative skill while deriding what was seen as a lack of charisma and subservience to his superiors. The Korean press corps calls him "the slippery eel" for his ability to dodge questions. His demeanor has also been described as a "Confucian approach." He is regarded by many as a "stand-up guy" and is known for his "easy smile".

Diplomatic career

After graduating from university, Ban received the top score on Korea's foreign service exam. He joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in May 1970, and worked his way up the career ladder during the years of the Yusin Constitution.

His first overseas posting was to New Delhi, India, where he served as vice consul and impressed many of his superiors in the foreign ministry with his competence. Ban reportedly accepted a posting to India rather than the more prestigious United States, because in India he would be able to save more money, and send more money home to his family. In 1974 he received his first posting to the United Nations, as First Secretary of the South Permanent Observer Mission (South Korea became a full UN member-state on 17 September 1991). After Park Chung-hee's 1979 assassination, Ban assumed the post of Director of the United Nations Division.

In 1980 Ban became director of the United Nation's International Organizations and Treaties Bureau, headquartered in Seoul. He has been posted twice to the Republic of Korea embassy in Washington, D.C. Between these two assignments he served as Director-General for American Affairs in 1990–1992. In 1992, he became Vice Chairman of the South-North Joint Nuclear Control Commission, following the adoption by South and North Korea of the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. From 1993–1994 Ban was Korea's deputy ambassador to the United States. He was promoted to the position of Deputy Minister for Policy Planning and International Organizations in 1995 and then appointed National Security Advisor to the President in 1996. Ban's lengthy career overseas has been credited with helping him avoid South Korea's unforgiving political environment.

Ban was appointed Ambassador to Austria and Slovenia in 1998, and a year later he was also elected as Chairman of the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO PrepCom). During the negotiations, in what Ban considers the biggest blunder of his career, he included in a public letter a positive statement about the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2001, not long after the United States had decided to abandon the treaty. To avoid anger from the United States, Ban was fired by President Kim Dae-jung, who also issued a public apology for Ban's statement.

Ban was unemployed for the only time in his career and was expecting to receive an assignment to work in a remote and unimportant embassy. In 2001, during the 56th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the Republic of Korea held the rotating presidency, and to Ban's surprise, he was selected to be the chief of staff to general assembly president Han Seung-soo. In 2003, incoming president Roh Moo-hyun selected Ban as one of his foreign policy advisors.

Foreign Minister of South Korea

In 2004, Ban replaced Yoon Young Kwan as foreign minister of South Korea under president Roh Moo-hyun. At the beginning of his term, Ban was faced with two major crises: in June 2004 Kim Sun-il, a Korean translator, was kidnapped and killed in Iraq by Islamic extremists; and in December 2004 dozens of Koreans died in the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Ban survived scrutiny from lawmakers and saw an upturn in his popularity when talks began with North Korea. Ban became actively involved in issues relating to inter-Korean relationships. In September 2005, as Foreign Minister, he played a leading role in the diplomatic efforts to adopt the Joint Statement on resolving the North Korean nuclear issue at the Fourth Round of the Six-party talks held in Beijing.

As foreign minister, Ban oversaw the trade and aid policies of South Korea. This work put Ban in the position of signing trade deals and delivering foreign assistance to diplomats who would later be influential in his candidacy for Secretary-General. For example, Ban became the first senior South Korean minister to travel to Congo since its independence in 1960.

Campaign for Secretary-General: 2007

In February 2006, Ban declared his candidacy to replace Kofi Annan as UN Secretary-General at the end of 2006, becoming the first South Korean to run for the office. Though Ban was the first to announce a candidacy, he was not originally considered a serious contender.

Over the next eight months, Ban made ministerial visits to each of the 15 countries with a seat on the Security Council. Of the seven candidates, he topped each of the four straw polls conducted by the United Nations Security Council: on 24 July, 14 September, 28 September, and 2 October.

During the period in which these polls took place, Ban made major speeches to the Asia Society and the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. To be confirmed, Ban needed not only to win the support of the diplomatic community, but also to be able to avoid a veto from any of the five permanent members of the council: People's Republic of China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Ban was popular in Washington for having pushed to send South Korean troops to Iraq, and had the support of the Bush administration as he pursued the position. But Ban also opposed several U.S. positions: he expressed his support for the International Criminal Court and favoured an entirely non-confrontational approach to dealing with North Korea. Ban said during his campaign that he would like to visit North Korea in person to meet with Kim Jong-il directly. Ban was viewed as a stark contrast from Kofi Annan, who was considered charismatic, but perceived as a weak manager because of problems surrounding the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq.

Ban struggled to win the approval of France. His official biography states that he speaks both English and French, the two working languages of the UN Secretariat. He has repeatedly struggled to answer questions in French from journalists. Ban has repeatedly acknowledged his limitations at French, but assured French diplomats that he was devoted to continuing his study. At a press conference on 11 January 2007, Ban remarked, “My French perhaps could be improved, and I am continuing to work. I have taken French lessons over the last few months. I think that, even if my French isn't perfect, I will continue to study it.”

As the Secretary-General election drew closer, there was rising criticism of the South Korean campaign on Ban's behalf. Specifically, his alleged practice of systematically visiting all member states of the Security Council in his role as the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade to secure votes in his support by signing trade deals with European countries and pledging aid to developing countries were the focus of many news articles. According to ''The Washington Post'', "rivals have privately grumbled that Republic of Korea, which has the world's 11th-largest economy, has wielded its economic might to generate support for his candidacy." Ban reportedly said that these insinuations were "groundless." In an interview on 17 September 2006 he stated: "As front-runner, I know that I can become a target of this very scrutinizing process," and "I am a man of integrity."

In the final informal poll on 2 October, Ban received fourteen favorable votes and one abstention ("no opinion") from the fifteen members of the Security Council. The one abstention came from the Japanese delegation, who vehemently opposed the idea of a Korean taking the role of Secretary-General. Due to the overwhelming support of Ban by the rest of the Security Council, Japan later voted in favor of Ban to avoid controversy. More importantly, Ban was the only one to escape a veto; each of the other candidates received at least one "no" vote from among the five permanent members. After the vote, Shashi Tharoor, who finished second, withdrew his candidacy and China's Permanent Representative to the UN told reporters that "it is quite clear from today's straw poll that Minister Ban Ki-moon is the candidate that the Security Council will recommend to the General Assembly."

On 9 October, the Security Council formally chose Ban as its nominee. In the public vote, he was supported by all 15 members of the council. On 13 October, the 192-member General Assembly acclaimed Ban as Secretary-General.

First Term as Secretary-General

When Ban became Secretary-General, ''The Economist'' listed the major challenges facing him in 2007: "rising nuclear demons in Iran and North Korea, a haemorrhaging wound in Darfur, unending violence in the Middle East, looming environmental disaster, escalating international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, the spread of HIV/AIDS. And then the more parochial concerns, such as the largely unfinished business of the most sweeping attempt at reform in the UN's history." Before starting, Kofi Annan shared the story that when the first Secretary-General Trygve Lie left office, he told his successor, Dag Hammarskjöld, "You are about to take over the most impossible job on earth."

On 23 January 2007 Ban took office as the eighth Secretary-General of the United Nations. Ban's term as Secretary-General opened with a flap. At his first encounter with the press as Secretary-General on 2 January 2007, he refused to condemn the death penalty imposed on Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi High Tribunal, remarking that “The issue of capital punishment is for each and every member State to decide”. Ban's statements contradicted long-standing United Nations opposition to the death penalty as a human-rights concern. He quickly clarified his stance in the case of Barzan al-Tikriti and Awad al-Bandar, two top officials who were convicted of the deaths of 148 Shia Muslims in the Iraqi village of Dujail in the 1980s. In a statement through his spokesperson on 6 January, he “strongly urged the Government of Iraq to grant a stay of execution to those whose death sentences may be carried out in the near future.” On the broader issue, he told a Washington, D.C., audience on 16 January 2007 that he recognized and encouraged the “growing trend in international society, international law and domestic policies and practices to phase out eventually the death penalty.”

On the tenth anniversary of Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot's death, 15 April 2008, Ban Ki-moon appealed for the senior leaders of the regime to be brought to justice. The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia-tribunal, which was established by both the United Nations and Cambodia and which became operational in 2006, is expected to continue until at least 2010.

Cabinet

In early January, Ban appointed the key members of his cabinet. As his Deputy Secretary-General, he selected Tanzanian foreign minister and professor Asha-Rose Migiro – a move that pleased African diplomats who had concerns of losing power without Annan in office.

The top position devoted exclusively to management, Under-Secretary-General for Management, was filled by Alicia Bárcena Ibarra of Mexico. Bárcena was considered a UN insider, having previously served as Annan's chief of staff. Her appointment was seen by critics as an indication that Ban would not make dramatic changes to UN bureaucracy. Ban appointed Sir John Holmes, the British Ambassador to France, as Under-Secretary-General for humanitarian affairs and coordinator of emergency relief.

Ban initially said that he would delay making other appointments until his first round of reforms were approved, but he later abandoned this idea after receiving criticism. In February he continued with appointments, selecting B. Lynn Pascoe, the U.S. ambassador to Indonesia, to become Under-Secretary-General for political affairs. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, a French diplomat, who had served as Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping operations under Annan, remained in office. Ban selected Vijay K. Nambiar as his chief of staff.

The appointment of many women to top jobs was seen as fulfilling a campaign promise Ban had made to increase the role of women in the United Nations. During Ban's first year as Secretary-General, more top jobs were being handled by women than ever before. Though not appointed by Ban, the president of the General Assembly, Haya Rashed Al-Khalifa, is only the third woman to hold this position in UN history.

Reform agenda

During his first month in office, Ban proposed two major restructurings: to split the UN peacekeeping operation into two departments and to combine the political affairs and disarmament department. His proposals were met with stiff resistance from members of the UN General Assembly who bristled under Ban's request for rapid approval. The proposed merger of the disarmament and political affairs offices was criticized by many in the developing world, partially because of rumours that Ban hoped to place American B. Lynn Pascoe in charge of the new office. Alejandro D. Wolff, then acting American ambassador, said the United States backed his proposals.

After the early bout of reproach, Ban began extensive consultation with UN ambassadors, agreeing to have his peacekeeping proposal extensively vetted. After the consultations, Ban dropped his proposal to combine political affairs and disarmament. Ban nevertheless pressed ahead with reforms on job requirements at the UN requiring that all positions be considered five-year appointments, all receive strict annual performance reviews, and all financial disclosures be made public. Though unpopular in the New York office, the move was popular in other UN offices around the world and lauded by UN observers. Ban's proposal to split the peacekeeping operation into one group handling operations and another handling arms was finally adopted in mid-March 2007.

A new agenda for negotiations on UN reform was approved by the General Assembly in April 2007, covering a number of loosely related initiatives to improve the coherence of the UN system. Most proposals required the approval of member states; others provided further impetus to already initiated reform measures. Ban Ki-moon supported the ongoing negotiations on the consolidation of UN activities at the country level under the ‘Delivering as One’ initiative through the implementation of the ‘One UN’ pilot projects and the harmonization of business practices in the UN system. He also gave strong support to the proposal on establishing a unified gender organisation. Whereas little was achieved on most of the controversial issues, the General Assembly approved in September 2010 the establishment of ‘UN Women’ as the new UN organization for the empowerment of women and gender equality. UN Women was established by unifying the mandates and resources for greater impact of four small entities and its first head is Ms Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile.

Key issues

The Secretary-General of the United Nations has the ability to influence debate on nearly any global issue. Although unsuccessful in some areas, Ban's predecessor Annan had been successful in increasing the UN peacekeeping presence and in popularizing the Millennium Development Goals. UN observers were eager to see on which issues Ban intends to focus, in addition to reform of the United Nations bureaucracy.

On several prominent issues, such as proliferation in Iran and North Korea, Ban has deferred to the Security Council. Ban has also declined to become involved on the issue of Taiwan's status. In 2007, the Republic of Nauru raised the issue of allowing the Republic of China (Taiwan) to sign the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Ban referenced the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 2758, and refused the motion. On 19 July 2007, Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian wrote to request admission into the UN by the name Taiwan. Ban rejected the request.

Global warming

Ban early on identified global warming as one of the key issues of his administration. In a White House meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in January, Ban urged Bush to take steps to curb greenhouse gas emissions. On 1 March 2007 in a speech before the UN General Assembly, Ban emphasized his concerns about global warming. Ban stated, "For my generation, coming of age at the height of the Cold War, fear of nuclear winter seemed the leading existential threat on the horizon. But the danger posed by war to all humanity — and to our planet — is at least matched by climate change" (referring to Global Warming, see P:GW portal). On 3 September 2009 he further emphasized his concerns at the World Climate Conference in Geneva, when he stated, "Our foot is stuck on the accelerator and we are heading towards an abyss".

Middle East

On Thursday, 22 March 2007, while Ban was taking part in the first stop of a tour of the Middle East, a mortar attack hit just from where the Secretary-General was standing, interrupting a press conference in Baghdad's Green Zone, and visibly shaking Ban and others. No one was hurt in the incident. The United Nations had already limited its role in Iraq after its Baghdad headquarters was bombed in August 2003, killing 22 people. Ban said, however, that he still hoped to find a way for the United Nations to "do more for Iraqi social and political development."

On his trip, Ban visited Egypt, Israel, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia, where Ban attended a conference with leaders of the Arab League and met for several hours with Omar Hassan al-Bashir, the Sudanese president who had resisted UN peacekeepers in Darfur. While Ban met with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, he declined to meet with Ismail Haniya of Hamas.

Ban Ki-moon criticized Israel on 10 March 2008 for planning to build housing units in a West Bank settlement, saying the decision conflicts with "Israel's obligation under the road map" for Middle East peace.

During a meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday, 7 January 2009, Ban called for an immediate end to fighting in the Gaza Strip. He criticized both sides, Israel for bombarding Gaza and Hamas for firing rockets into Israel.

Although the 2009 Iranian presidential election was widely disputed, Ban Ki-moon sent a traditional congratulation message to the Iranian president upon his inauguration. He kept silent over the request of Shirin Ebadi to visit Iran after the crackdown on peaceful post-election protests by the Iranian police – an event that was perceived by some as a crime against humanity . More than 4000 people were arrested and nearly 70 were killed, some while being held in prison. In another incident, several prominent intellectuals including Akbar Ganji, Hamid Dabashi, Noam Chomsky went on a three-day hunger strike in front of the UN. The incident was followed by an official request by more than 200 intellectuals, human rights activists and reformist politicians in Iran for the UN reaction. Ban Ki-moon however did not take any action to stop the violence in Iran.

Darfur

Ban took the first foreign trip of his term to attend the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in January 2007 as part of an effort to reach out to the Group of 77. He repeatedly identified Darfur as the top humanitarian priority of his administration. Ban played a large role, with several face-to-face meetings with Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, in convincing Sudan to allow UN peacekeepers to enter the Darfur region. On 31 July 2007 the United Nations Security Council approved sending 26,000 UN peacekeepers into the region to join 7,000 troops from the African Union. The resolution was heralded as a major breakthrough in confronting the Darfur conflict (although the United States labeled the conflict a "genocide," the United Nations has declined to do so). The first phase of the peacekeeping mission began in October 2007.

Myanmar

Ban Ki-moon flew to Myanmar on 25 May 2008 to guide a conference with international agencies aimed at boosting donations for the nation, which was struck by Cyclone Nargis on 2 May 2008. The conference was initiated after Ban had met with Than Shwe, the leading figure of Myanmar's government 23 May 2008. Ban toured the devastation—especially in the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta—23 May 2008 and 24 May 2008. Myanmar officials agreed to allow the Yangon International Airport to be used as a logistical hub for aid distribution.

Campaign for second term as Secretary-General: 2011

On 6 June 2011, Ban Ki-moon formally announced his candidacy for a second consecutive term as Secretary-General of the United Nations. He announced his candidacy at a press conference, following a meeting with the Asian group of countries at the United Nations. Ban Ki-moon's first mandate as the Secretary-General was set to end on 31 December 2011. The five permanent Security Council members supported his candidacy. There was no declared rival for the post.

On 17 June 2011, he received the recommendation of the Security Council by a unanimous vote, and, on 21 June, his nomination was confirmed by a unanimous acclamation vote at the United Nations General Assembly.

His new five-year term as Secretary-General will commence on 1 January 2012 and will end on 31 December 2016.

Honors and awards

Ban Ki-moon was awarded the Order of Service Merit by the Government of the Republic of Korea on three occasions: in 1975, 1986 and 2006.

For his accomplishments as an envoy, he received the Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria in 2001.

He was bestowed the Grand Cross of Rio Branco by the government of Brazil.

He was bestowed the Gran Cruz del Sol by the government of Peru.

He was bestowed a Doctor Honoris Causa by the National University of San Marcos, the main university in Peru and the oldest of the Americas (2011).

He was bestowed a Doctor of Laws Degree Honoris Causa by the University of the Philippines College of Law, the national university of the country, in 2008.

He was honored with James A. Van Fleet Award by the Korea Society in New York City for his contributions to friendship between the United States and the Republic of Korea.

Controversy

According to ''The Washington Post'', "some U.N. employees and delegates" expressed resentment at Ban's perceived favoritism in the appointment of South Korean nationals in key posts. Previous U.N. chiefs such as Kurt Waldheim (Austria), Javier Pérez de Cuéllar (Peru) and Boutros Boutros-Ghali (Egypt) brought small teams of trusted aides or clerical workers from their country's Foreign Ministry. But according to "some officials" in the ''Post'' story, Ban has gone further, boosting South Korea's presence in U.N. ranks by more than 20 percent during his first year in office. In response, Ban and his aides have claimed that allegations of favoritism are wrong, and that some of the harshest criticisms against him have undercurrents of racism. He said that the South Korean nationals he had appointed — including Choi Young-jin, who has served as a high-ranking official in the United Nation's peacekeeping department — are highly qualified for their positions. Others such as Donald P. Gregg, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea say the complaints are driven by envy, "I think being from South Korea, and people have growing respect for South Korea, that's a great enhancement for the secretary general. "If he brings along talented people who he knows very well, I think that's also a plus." U.N. records show that South Korea, the organization's eleventh-largest financial contributor, had 54 South Korean nationals assigned to its mission six months before Ban took over the top U.N. post. By contrast, the Philippines, a lesser financial contributor, had 759 nationals in its mission.

Former U.N. Under Secretary Inga-Britt Ahlenius denounced Ban Ki Moon after resigning her post in 2010, calling him reprehensible.

Bias

During the ROKS ''Cheonan'' sinking saga, he took the unusual step of demanding action against North Korea for the alleged sinking of a vessel from his country. This move was perceived as unusual because it was rare for any Secretary-General—and particularly Ban Ki-moon—to comment on the Security Council taking action on a particular issue. The office tended to be extremely deferential to the Security Council.

References

External links

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, official United Nations profile, statements, reports, press briefings

Column archive at ''The Guardian''

Ban Ki-moon interview with Dennis Wholey on 23 February 2006

Ban Ki-moon's address to the United Nations General Assembly, General Debate of the 63rd Session, 23 September 2008

Ban Ki-moon on Sixty Years of UN Peacekeeping, Dublin Castle, 7 July 2009

Category:United Nations Secretaries-General Category:Sustainability advocates Category:South Korean diplomats Category:Ambassadors to Austria Category:Seoul National University people Category:People from Chungcheongbuk-do Category:Harvard University alumni Category:International relations scholars Category:Ambassadors of South Korea Category:1944 births Category:Living people Category:Government ministers of South Korea

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Hangul	김윤옥
Hanja
Rr	Gim Yun-ok
Mr	Kim Yun'ok }}

Kim Yoon-ok (born March 26, 1947) is the current First Lady of the Republic of Korea.

Biography and career

Kim graduated from Daegu Girls' High School in 1966 and went on to attend Ewha Womans University, where she graduated in 1970 with a B.A. in Health Education and Management. She married Lee Myung-bak on December 19, 1970, with whom she has a son and three daughters. Her family runs a construction company in Daegu.

In 1995, she completed the 1st Advanced Leadership Program for Women at her alma mater. In 1996, she completed the 7th Women's Top Management Program at Yonsei University. In 2001, she completed the Leadership Program of the Women's Academy at Sookmyung Women's University.

In 2002, she became the President of the Alumni Association of the Women's Top Management Program at Yonsei University.

References

Category:1947 births Category:Yonsei University alumni Category:Ewha Womans University alumni Category:South Korean Christians Category:Living people Category:South Korean Presbyterians Category:Christian fundamentalists Category:First Ladies of South Korea

ko:김윤옥 ja:金潤玉 simple:Kim Yoon-ok wuu:金润玉 zh-yue:金潤玉 zh:金潤玉