KOFI ANNAN: The UN secretary-general at the time knew he had to keep his mouth shut on the Iraq crisis as the big powers on the UN Security Council slugged it out. But he finally spoke his mind in a BBC interview a few months after the invasion, saying that the war had been "illegal" because it was not authorised by the Security Council, and voicing his regret that a second UN resolution had not been achieved in the final days before the war began. Since leaving the UN in December 2006, he has been based in Geneva, where he has set up a foundation, the Global Humanitarian Forum, of which he is president. Acting in an individual capacity, the Ghanaian career diplomat was called in as chief mediator to broker a power-sharing agreement between rival factions in Kenya after the disputed elections of December 2007.
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