NEW YORK:

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appointed activist and actress Charlize Theron as a United Nations messenger of peace, announced UN spokesman Farhan Haq on November 14.

The South Africa-born actress, who won an Oscar for her role in the 2003 movie Monster, will have responsibilities for promoting UN efforts to fight violence against women around the world, said Haq.

Theron, who became a naturalised US citizen in 2007, founded the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project with the goal of promoting HIV/AIDS education for impoverished children and their families in South Africa.

She will be formally inducted on November 17 at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

In her new role she will join the nine other UN messengers of peace — Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim, American actors George Clooney and Michael Douglas, Nobel Peace Prize winner for literature Elie Wiesel, Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma, British primatologist Jane Goodall, Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan, Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho and Japanese violinist Midori Goto. — AFP