By EDITH M. LEDERER
The Associated Press
Tuesday, November 7, 2006; 7:39 PM

UNITED NATIONS -- The United Nations on Tuesday named American diplomat Josette Sheeran the next head of the World Food Program and she said her top priorities will be to ensure no child goes to bed hungry and to reduce hunger-related deaths.

Sheeran, the U.S. undersecretary of state for economics, business and agricultural affairs, will replace American James T. Morris for a five-year term as head of the world's largest humanitarian agency.

"WFP has the unique mission of making sure that no child goes to bed hungry any night, and while WFP has made huge contributions to saving lives there's more to be done," Sheeran said.

"According to the U.N., 25,000 people a day die from hunger-related issues," she told the Associated Press in a telephone interview. "So my first focus will be to make sure that we have the resources and capability to meet the emergency needs."

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who was told of the decision and jumped the gun on the official announcement, said the United States was very pleased and called Sheeran "extraordinarily well-qualified."

Founded in 1962, WFP provides food aid to an average of 90 million poor people, including 58 million hungry children in at least 80 of the world's poorest countries. The United States said it provides nearly half of the annual contributions to the Rome-based agency, which has an annual budget of just under $3 billion.

Sheehan said WFP must be part of a global strategy to meet the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty by half by 2015. She said she will also ensure WFP addresses "chronic hunger in the villages and nations where it comes up every year."

Prior to her current State Department job, Sheeran served as the deputy U.S. trade representative.

Formerly known by her married name of Josette Shiner, she spent 15 years at the Washington Times founded by Rev. Sun Myung Moon, including as managing editor. She joined Moon's Unification Church in the 1970s, but has said she later became an Episcopalian.

Dujarric was asked whether Sheeran's past membership in the Unification Church came up during her interview for the job.

"People's religious affiliation is their own," he said. "People are not judged on their religious affiliation."

Sheeran told AP: "I have no association with the Unification Church since I left the Washington Times in 1997."

She has long conservative credentials as a writer and commentator and as president at the conservative public policy group Empower America, based in Washington. She served as managing director of Starpoint Solutions, a leading Wall Street technology firm, and was a member of an independent panel that just finished a report on streamlining U.N. development, humanitarian and environment operations.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, made the final selection and jointly announced their appointment of Sheeran. The executive board of the WFP, which met Tuesday in Rome, agreed, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

He said Annan consulted his successor, Ban Ki-moon, who takes over as secretary-general on Jan. 1 and Ban "agreed with the decision."

Sheeran defeated three other candidates on the short list _ American Tony Banbury, who heads WFP's Asia operation and was not supported by President Bush's administration; Walter Fust, the director of the Swiss Development and Cooperation Department; and Robert Fowler, Canada's ambassador to the World Food Program.