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Sunday, 15 October 2017

UNESCO leadership goes to France’s Azoulay

Former French culture minister Audrey Azoulay was elected the new head of UNESCO, beating Qatar’s Hamad bin Abdulaziz Al Kawari after a fifth round of voting, Reuters reports. Khattab had exited the running after an earlier head-to-head ballot with Azoulay, who went on to beat the Qatari amid allegations the statelet had engaged in bribery in connection with the bid. After initially filing a notice to UNESCO alleging irregularities in the secret ballot, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry issued a statement congratulating Azoulay and another thanking all the countries which gave its support to Khattab’s bid, including China.

The vote came after the US and Israel pulled out of UNESCO on charges that the organization is biased against Israel, Reuters reports. The US provides one fifth of UNESCO’s budget. Azoulay is the first person to run the cultural institution who identifies herself as being Jewish.

Meanwhile, the UN’s human rights agency condemned Egypt, Azerbaijan, and Indonesia for “unjustly arrested dozens of people during anti-gay crackdowns in recent weeks,” according to Reuters.

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