Reports noted that a close race was on for the post of the director general of the IAEA after 12 year stint of its current head Mohamed el-Baradei ends this year. Japan has nominated the 62-year old Yukiya Amano, a career civil servant in Japan's Foreign Service, who is also well-known among international disarmament and nuclear proliferation experts. He is up against South Africa's Abdul Samad Minty. Both the candidates are their country's respective ambassadors to the IAEA1.

The change in the leadership comes at a pivotal time in the organisation’s history, faced with the Iranian nuclear challenge. Sources indicated that the two officials could not be more different in their personalities and attitudes towards issues like arms control and atomic energy2.

• 1. Todd Crowell, “Tight race for atomic agency's hot seat,” Asia Times, March 25, 2009, at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/KC25Dh01.html
• 2. Borzou Daragahi, “IAEA succession battle shapes nuclear agency's future,” Los Angeles Times, March 18, 2009, http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-fg-vienna-nuclear18-20...