CRI听力:Former UN Chief Boutros-Ghali Passes away

The President of the UN Security Council for this month, Venezuela's UN Ambassador Rafael Dario made the announcement ahead of a Security Council meeting on Tuesday morning.

"Dear colleagues, we have been informed that Secretary General Boutrous Boutros Ghali has passed away. We want to ask members of the Security Council to hold a minute's silence in his memory."

Boutros-Ghali served as U.N. chief from 1992 to 1996. His term was marked by brutal conflicts in Haiti, Somalia, Rwanda and the the former Yugoslavia.

Present UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, says Boutros-Ghali headed the United Nations at the time when the world body was redefining itself after the Cold War.

"The late Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali was a respected statesman in the service of his country Egypt. He was a well-known scholar of international law and brought formidable experience and intellectual power to the task of piloting the United Nations through one of the most tumultuous and challenging periods in its history, and guiding the Organization of the Francophonie in subsequent years."

Ban Ki-moon also praised Boutros-Ghali's role in the strengthening of the UN's peacekeeping system.

"As Secretary-General, he presided over a dramatic rise in UN peacekeeping. He also presided over a time when the world increasingly turned to the United Nations for solutions to its problems, in the immediate aftermath of the cold war."

Boutros-Ghali was the author of a report called 'An Agenda for Peace,' an analysis on ways to strengthen UN capacity for preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peacekeeping.

Born on Nov 14, 1922 Boutros-Ghali came from a Coptic Christian family in Cairo. He was educated at Cairo University and then later in Paris.

He went on to study international relations at Columbia University in New York and became Egypt's foreign minister in 1977.

Boutros-Ghali accompanied Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat on the historic visit to Jerusalem in 1977 and played a prominent role in the Camp David accords aiming to being peace to the Middle East.

He visited China several times and only last month met with Chinese President Xi Jinping along with nine other people to be awarded for their outstanding contribution to China-Egypt friendship.

Boutros-Ghali died at Al Salam Hospital in Cairo on Tuesday. He was 94 years old.

For CRI, I'm Su Yi in New York.