According to the Boston Globe, the Iraqi foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari demanded the UN general secretary Ban Ki-moon to appoint ex Romanian ambassador to Baghdad Radu Onofrei a head of the UN mission in Iraq. Here are some of the candidates at stake: Swedish Staffan de Mistura, French Jean Arnault, a diplomat who coordinated UN missions in Afghanistan, Guatemala and Georgia, and Lebanese Ghassan Salame, formerly a minister of culture and Iraqi affairs adviser of Kofi Annan, at the time when the latter was a general secretary of the organization. (D.E.)