Ban Ki Moon wanted to start his first day at work as the new UN Secretary-General with a morning staff meeting at 8am today. But the former South Korean Foreign Minister quickly learnt that the organisation’s bureaucracy does not take easily to change. According to a UN source, staff informed him that the Korean-style early start would create too many difficulties and he was forced to reschedule his arrival to 9.30am.

The Harvard-educated career diplomat has pledged to “restore trust” in an organisation bitterly divided by the war in Iraq and scarred by the Oil-for-Food corruption scandal while Kofi Annan was at the helm. He told reporters: “You could say that I’m a man on a mission, and my mission could be dubbed ‘Operation Restore Trust’ — trust in the organisation and trust between member states and the secretariat. I hope this mission is not mission impossible.”

Mr Ban, 62, a high-flyer who decided to become a diplomat after winning a Red Cross contest to meet President Kennedy at the age of 18, won the world’s top diplomatic job largely because of support from his partners in the six-party talks with North Korea — the US, China, Russia and Japan. Ed Luck, a Columbia University professor who has written some of his early speeches, said: “Ban talks about listening and healing and that is where he is going to put his emphasis.

“There have been a lot of criticisms that Kofi Annan, because he was such a global superstar, was a bit out of touch with the politics, particularly here in New York . . . There is some feeling that he was out of touch with the organisation.”

During a Christmas trip to South Korea, Mr Ban told reporters that his top priorites would be the crises in Darfur and Lebanon, the nuclear stand-off with Iran, and the Arab-Israeli conflict, as well as UN reform.

Professor Luck said: “Mr Ban does seem to be quite confident of his expertise as a mediator in conflict situations. Given the amount of conflict in the world today, I am sure he is not going to have a shortage of work.”

Lee Feinstein, a Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, said that Washington backed Mr Ban because it wanted “an implementer, not a speechifier”.

He said: “He has got certain skills that are probably very good for a secretary-general. And in some ways he’s more in the mould of a traditional secretary-general, in the sense that he’s unlikely to make public statements that will give offence to one party or another, and much more of a conciliator, although not to be confused with somebody who’s not strong,” he said.

The self-effacing South Korean jokingly boasts of his reputation as a “slippery eel” for sliding away from difficult questions from the press. But he has already run up against some of the very real roadblocks at the 192-member UN.

Despite being elected unusually early with a vote in October, Mr Ban has failed to meet his own deadline for finding a successor to Mark Malloch Brown, the UN’s British second-in-command, whose contract expired at the end of last year. In a power grab, developing nations led by India and Pakistan, demanded that the post of deputy secretary-general be subject to confirmation by the General Assembly. Mr Ban has agreed to consult member states.

UN sources say that he is considering several Third World women, including Rima Khalaf, the Jordanian behind the UN’s controversial Arab development reports; Fayza Abulnaga, an Egyptian minister; and Thoraya Obaid, head of the UN Population Fund. The latest candidate is said to be Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Nigerian Finance Minister.

On New Year's Eve, Mr Ban announced his first two appointments by e-mail, naming an award-winning Haitian journalist currently serving at the UN to be his spokesman. Michèle Montas was married to Jean Dominique, the campaigning Haitian radio broadcaster murdered in 2000.

Vijay Nambiar, a veteran Indian diplomat who has served since March as an adviser to Mr Annan, was named chief of staff.

BAN'S IN TRAY

Find consensus for an expanded Security Council which reflects the 21st century but appeases the current permanent members

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