U.N. atom watchdog IAEA Election deadlocked

U.N. nuclear watchdog governors failed to agree on a successor to Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei on Friday after five rounds of voting, opening the field to new candidates who might bridge rich-poor divisions.

The International Atomic Energy Agency was keen to avoid a long delay installing a new chief as it confronts mounting challenges, including Iran's disputed pursuit of nuclear technology that could yield atomic bombs and a shortage of money needed to uphold its anti-proliferation mandate.

Yukiya Amano, 61, Japan's envoy to the IAEA, was the favourite but fell one vote short of the two-thirds majority required in the final vote by the IAEA's 35-nation Board of Governors against South Africa's Abdul Samad Minty, 69.

Voting was split largely along rich and poor nation lines. Industrialized states backed Amano, developing states Minty.

"The slate of candidates is considered to have been wiped clean," Ambassador Taous Feroukhi of Algeria, chairman of the Vienna-based governing board, told reporters. More