In stunning upset victory, woman to head UNESCO

Paris: In what can only be described as a stunning upset, Irina Bokova, Bulgaria’s former foreign minister and current ambassador to Paris became the first woman to head UNESCO, the Paris-based United Nations agency for education science and culture. She also became the first person from the former Soviet bloc countries to be nominated to this post.

Ms. Bokova was elected on Tuesday by the organisation’s 58-member Executive Board, winning 31 votes to defeat her rival, Egypt’s culture minister Farukh Hosni, who polled 27.