Five candidates were nominated in the second round of voting to replace Mohamed ElBaradei as Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency. ElBaradei’s term ends in November.Yukiya Amano of Japan was renominated for the post. Amano failed by one vote to win the necessary two-thirds majority of the IAEA’s Board of Governors over Abdul Samad Minty of South Africa in the first round. Minty was also renominated in the second round.The three other candidates are Luis Echávarri of Spain, Ernest Petrič of Slovenia, and Jean-Pol Poncelet of Belgium.As we reported earlier, Amano is a technocrat who would serve the interests of the United States far better than Minty who would probably be no different than ElBaradei. If anything, Minty might enable Iran even more than ElBaradei in its quest to develop nuclear weapons.Among the new candidates, Luis Echávarri of Spain appears to have the best chance. Echávarri heads the Nuclear Energy...(Read Full Post)