The World - News from Nov. 17, 1987

Federico Mayor took over as the new director general of UNESCO and immediately froze all hiring and promotion, blocking last-minute decisions by his controversial predecessor, Amadou Mahtar M’Bow. Mayor, taking the oath of office at the Paris headquarters of the financially troubled U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, said his order applies to “all staffing decisions, including those already taken.” He also called on the agency to cut back the scope of its work and said he will modernize its efforts, a demand of Western countries since the United States and Britain quit the agency in 1984-85 to protest anti-Western bias and mismanagement.