Nuclear chief re-elected

last updated 8 January 2015

Vienna

Egyptian diplomat Mohamed ElBaradei has won a third term as head of the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog agency. ElBaradei was first named director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1997, with the backing of the U.S., and won a second term four years later. But he angered the Bush administration in 2003 by refusing to confirm that Saddam Hussein had nuclear weapons. After that, the Bush administration stopped cooperating with him and tried to recruit other candidates for his position. ElBaradei is popular elsewhere, though, and has been widely commended for his thorough inspections in Iran. The U.S. last week dropped its opposition to a third term for ElBaradei, and the 35-member IAEA board voted unanimously to reappoint him.