New York, 21 December: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon flew 125,000 miles and made 57 official visits to more than 120 separate cities and locations in 39 countries or territories during his first 12 months in office. His travels in 2007 covered six continents
and included more than 300 bilateral meetings with government officials. In all, he was on the road for 132 days of his first year on the job.
In a message to staff and the world community, the Secretary-General said he had been pushing objectives on four main fronts:
- UN Reform: to change the UN culture and re-engineer the United Nations for life in a fast-paced modern world;
- Climate Change: to make the fight against global warming his top priority;
- The Millennium Development Goals and Human Rights: to reinforce the campaign to end global poverty, now at its mid-point;
- Geopolitics and Security: including the situations in Darfur, the Middle East, Congo-DRC, Haiti, Iraq and humanitarian emergencies in Bangladesh, Congo, Sudan and the Occupied Palestinian territories.