Egyptian Tied in Race for UNESCO Director General

[New York Times] Steven Erlanger - In the fourth round of voting for the new UNESCO director general, Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosny, who has been accused of anti-Semitism and censorship, was tied 29-29 with Irina Bokova, the Bulgarian ambassador to the agency. Elaph.com, an Arabic-language Web site, published Saturday what it said were private admissions by Hosny that when he was the Egyptian cultural attache in Rome, he helped to organize the escape from Italy in 1985 of the hijackers of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. In that episode, a retired American Jewish tourist in a wheelchair was shot and pushed into the sea, horrifying much of the world.


2009-09-22 08:00:00

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