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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

Costa Rican diplomat emerges as strong contender to be first female head of UN

Rebeca Grynspan, wearing glasses and a yellow suit, addresses a UN meeting
Rebeca Grynspan’s parents were refugees from the Holocaust. If elected she would be the UN’s first Jewish secretary general. Photograph: Santiago Mazzarovich/AFP/Getty Images

A Costa Rican diplomat and former vice-president whose parents were refugees from the Holocaust has become the surprise frontrunner to lead the United Nations as its first female secretary general.

Rebeca Grynspan, whose parents emigrated to Central America from Poland – and whose maternal grandparents were killed by the Nazis – is the current head of the UN conference on trade and development (UNCTAD), a body that has exhaustively tallied the economic damage inflicted by Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories.

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