The case for South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon to become the next UN Secretary General is founded, his supporters say, on his skills as a consummate mediator and a world-class administrator. The world?s top powers seem to agree, casting aside concerns he may be too low-profile and too uncharismatic to lead in difficult times.

In his own words, Mr Ban sees himself as a ?harmoniser, balancer, mediator?. During the long selection process, he has talked much of reforming the UN - how the organisation must promise less and deliver more.

But there has been little on specifics - which commentators say may have been a deliberate move not to tread on toes as his candidacy progressed. They say it is a strategy honed through his tough, high-wire act of negotiations with North Korea over its development of nuclear weapons.

And it is a strategy that has apparently succeeded - the man who seemed to be many people?s second choice winning, by consensus, a post that the current Secretary General Kofi Annan has called the ?world?s most impossible job?.