Egypt's Farouk Hosni beaten to UN job

The Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni, tipped to become head of Unesco, has been beaten to the post by former Bulgarian Foreign Minister Irina Bokova.

It took a committee five rounds of votes to decide that the new Director General of Unesco, the United Nations’ cultural arm, would be Ms Bokova.

Mr Hosni, who would have been the first Arab to hold the position, has been an outspoken critic of Israel and his campaign was dogged with allegations of antisemitism.

He talked of “burning all Israeli books in Egyptian libraries” and criticised the “infiltration of Jews into the international media”.