By Xinhua,
United Nations : Nine candidates are in the fray for the top job at the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), officials said.
Current UNESCO director-general Koichiro Matsuura will end his term in November. He served two terms at UNESCO.
The nine candidates are from Lithuania, Bulgaria, Egypt, Tanzania, Russia, Ecuador, Austria and Benin, the UNESCO said in a statement Monday.
UNESCO’s Executive Board will interview all the candidates in September, after which the 58-member body will vote by a secret ballot for the next director-general.
The Paris-based UNESCO was created in 1946 to build lasting world peace on the basis of the intellectual and moral solidarity of humankind. Its areas of work are education, science, culture and communication, among others.