UNESCO

The Egyptologist and former minister of antiquities will be the first Arab to lead the UN’s cultural organisation.

The board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has nominated Egypt’s Khaled el-Enany, an academic and former minister of tourism and antiquities, as its next head, ahead of the organisation’s general conference next month.

If confirmed, el-Enany, a professor of Egyptology at Cairo’s Helwan University, would become the first Arab director-general of the organisation, which oversees the UN’s handling of cultural heritage, alongside international cooperation efforts in other areas including science and education.

The former minister campaigned widely for the role, which was also contested by Firmin Edouard Matoko of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Gabriela Ramos of Mexico, who withdrew from the race earlier this year.

The decision by the board, which represents 58 of the agency’s 194 member states, is expected to be finalised at a meeting of UNESCO’s general assembly in Uzbekistan next month.

The organisation’s next leader will replace France’s former Minister of Culture Audrey Azoulay who has served in the role since 2017.

Azoulay notably helped lead a high-profile effort to rebuild the ancient Iraqi city of Mosul after it was devastated during fighting between the ISIL (ISIS) armed group and combined US and Iraqi forces.

El-Enany’s nomination comes as the Paris-based UN body continues to face political challenges, including in its work of choosing which cultural heritage sites to help preserve from threats including wars, pollution and climate change.

The organisation is also set to face an eight percent funding cut at the end of 2026, when the United States again formally withdraws its membership, along with its funding.

It will be the second time that the Trump administration has pulled the US out from the UN cultural organisation in protest at its members’ decision to admit the State of Palestine as a member in 2011.

The State of Palestine is also a Permanent Observer State member of the United Nations General Assembly, where more than 80 percent of member states now back its full membership.

Explaining the US decision to withdraw again, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce claimed that allowing Palestine to remain a member of UNESCO had “contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organisation.”

Israel left UNESCO at the end of 2018.

The organisation has been remotely monitoring damage to cultural heritage sites in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s war, and says that it has verified damage to a total of 110 sites since October 7, 2023, including 13 religious sites, 77 buildings of historical or artistic interest, three depositories of movable cultural property, nine monuments, one museum and seven archeological sites.

El-Enani, 54, worked earlier in his career as a tour guide at ancient Egyptian sites, earned a doctorate in France and became a famed Egyptologist prior to serving in government.

He was minister of antiquities, and later tourism, under Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi from 2016 to 2022.

El-Sisi welcomed the news of el-Enani’s nomination, calling the nomination a ‘’historic achievement that shall be added to Egypt’s diplomatic and cultural record and to the achievements of the Arab and African peoples.”

During his tenure in government, el-Enani oversaw the start of mega-tourism projects including the National Museum of Egyptian Civilisation in Cairo, the Jewish Temple and multiple ancient discoveries that helped revive the country’s battered tourism sector.

He is expected to focus on UNESCO’s cultural programs, and has pledged to continue UNESCO’s work to fight anti-Semitism and religious intolerance according to the Associated Press news agency.

United Nations — The Trump administration announced Tuesday that it will once again withdraw from the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO, an expected move that has the U.S. further retreating from international organizations.

The decision to pull U.S. funding and participation from UNESCO comes two years after the Biden administration rejoined following a controversial, five-year absence that began during President Trump’s first term. The White House cited similar concerns as it did in 2018, saying it believes U.S. involvement is not in its national interest and accusing the agency of promoting anti-Israel speech.

The decision, which won’t go into effect until December 2026, will deal a blow to an agency known for preserving cultural heritage through its UNESCO World Heritage Sites program — which recognizes significant landmarks for protection, ranging from the Taj Mahal to Egypt’s pyramids of Giza and the Grand Canyon National Park. The agency also empowers education and science across the globe.

It is the Trump administration’s latest move to pull support for U.N. agencies under a larger campaign to reshape U.S. diplomacy. Under the “America First” approach, the administration has pulled out of the U.N. World Health Organization and top U.N. human rights body, while reassessing its funding for others.

State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement that the withdrawal was linked to UNESCO’s perceived agenda to “advance divisive social and cultural causes.”

She added that UNESCO’s decision in 2011 “to admit the ‘State of Palestine’ as a Member State is highly problematic, contrary to U.S. policy, and contributed to the proliferation of anti-Israel rhetoric within the organization.”

UNESCO director general Audrey Azoulay said she “deeply” regrets the U.S. decision but said it was expected and that the agency “has prepared for it.” She also denied accusations of anti-Israel bias, saying it contradicts “the reality of UNESCO’s efforts, particularly in the field of Holocaust education and the fight against antisemitism.”

Azoulay added that “the reasons put forward by the United States of America are the same as seven years ago, even though the situation has changed profoundly, political tensions have receded, and UNESCO today constitutes a rare forum for consensus on concrete and action-oriented multilateralism.”

The Biden administration had rejoined UNESCO in 2023 after citing concerns that China was filling the gap left by the U.S. in UNESCO policymaking, notably in setting standards for artificial intelligence and technology education.

The withdrawal, which was first reported by the New York Post, came after a review ordered by the Trump administration earlier this year. While the U.S. had previously provided a notable share of the agency’s budget, UNESCO has diversified its funding sources in recent years as the U.S. contribution has decreased. Today, American assistance represents only 8% of the agency’s total budget.

Azoulay pledged that UNESCO will carry out its missions despite “inevitably reduced resources.” The agency said that it is not considering any staff layoffs at this stage.

“UNESCO’s purpose is to welcome all the nations of the world, and the United States of America is and always will be welcome,” she said. “We will continue to work hand in hand with all our American partners in the private sector, academia and non-profit organizations, and will pursue our political dialogue with the U.S. administration and Congress.”

The U.S. previously pulled out of UNESCO under the Reagan administration in 1984 because it viewed the agency as mismanaged, corrupt and used to advance the interests of the Soviet Union. It rejoined in 2003 during George W. Bush’s presidency.

Petrequin and Amiri write for the Associated Press. Petrequin reported from Brussels.

Added to the World Heritage list are two prisons: Tuol Sleng and M-13, as well as the execution site Choeung Ek.

Three notorious locations used by Cambodia’s brutal Khmer Rouge regime as torture and execution sites to perpetrate the genocide of Year Zero five decades ago have been added to UNESCO’s World Heritage list.

Two prisons and an execution site were inscribed on the list by the United Nations cultural agency on Friday during the 47th Session of the World Heritage Committee in Paris.

It coincided with the 50th anniversary of the rise to power by the communist Khmer Rouge, which caused the deaths of an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians through starvation, torture and mass executions during a four-year reign of violence from 1975 to 1979 before it was brought to an end by an invasion from neighbouring Vietnam.

UNESCO’s World Heritage list lists sites considered important to humanity and includes the Great Wall of China, the Pyramids of Giza in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India and Cambodia’s Angkor archaeological complex.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet issued a message on Friday directing people to beat drums simultaneously across the country on Sunday morning to mark the UNESCO listing.

🔴 BREAKING!

New inscription on the @UNESCO #WorldHeritage List: Cambodian Memorial Sites: From centres of repression to places of peace and reflection, #Cambodia 🇰🇭.

➡️ https://t.co/seTyyVu3sT #47WHC pic.twitter.com/SPl7zlxeFh

— UNESCO 🏛️ #Education #Sciences #Culture 🇺🇳 (@UNESCO) July 11, 2025

“May this inscription serve as a lasting reminder that peace must always be defended,” Hun Manet said in a video message aired by state-run television TVK. “From the darkest chapters of history, we can draw strength to build a better future for humanity.”

Two sites added to the list are in the capital, Phnom Penh – the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum and the Choeung Ek Genocide Centre.

Tuol Sleng is a former high school that was converted into a notorious prison known as S-21, where an estimated 15,000 people were imprisoned and tortured.

Today, the site is a space for commemoration and education, housing the black-and-white mugshots of its many victims and the preserved equipment used by Khmer Rouge tormentors.

The UNESCO inscription was Cambodia’s first nomination for a modern and non-classical archaeological site and is among the first in the world to be submitted as a site associated with recent conflict, Cambodia’s Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts said in a statement on Friday.

‘The Killing Fields’

Choeung Ek – a former Chinese cemetery – was a notorious “killing field” where S-21 prisoners were executed nightly. The story of the atrocities committed there is the focus of the 1984 film “The Killing Fields”, based on the experiences of New York Times photojournalist Dith Pran and correspondent Sydney Schanberg.

More than 6,000 bodies were exhumed from at least 100 mass graves at the ground in the early 1980s, according to Cambodian government documents filed with UNESCO.

Every year, hundreds hold remembrance prayers in front of the site’s memorial displaying victims’ skulls, and watch students stage dramatic re-enactments of the Khmer Rouge’s bloody crimes.

Another prison site, known as M-13 and located in a rural area in central Kampong Chhnang province, was one of the most important prisons of the early Khmer Rouge, where its cadres “invented and tested various methods of interrogation, torture and killing” but is today only a patch of derelict land.

A special tribunal sponsored by the UN, costing $337m and working over 16 years, only convicted three key Khmer Rouge figures, including S-21 chief torturer Kaing Guek Eav, before ceasing operations in 2022.

Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge regime, died in 1998 before he could be brought to trial.

UN cultural organisation this week announces its choice of sites to be granted World Heritage status.

The United Nations cultural organisation has added a remote Aboriginal site featuring one million carvings that potentially date back 50,000 years to its World Heritage list.

Located on the Burrup peninsula in Western Australia, Murujuga is home to the Mardudunera people, who declared themselves “overjoyed” when UNESCO gave the ancient site a coveted place on its list on Friday.

“These carvings are what our ancestors left here for us to learn and keep their knowledge and keep our culture thriving through these sacred sites,” said Mark Clifton, a member of the Aboriginal delegation meeting with UNESCO representatives in Paris.

Environmental and Indigenous organisations argue that the presence of mining groups emitting industrial emissions has already caused damage to the ancient site.

Benjamin Smith, a rock art specialist at the University of Western Australia, said Murujuga was “possibly the most important rock art site in the world”, but that mining activity was causing the rock art to “break down”.

“We should be looking after it,” he said.

Australian company Woodside Energy, which operates an industrial complex in the area, told news agency AFP that it recognised Murujuga as “one of Australia’s most culturally significant landscapes” and that it was taking “proactive steps … to ensure we manage our impacts responsibly”.

Delegation leader Raelene Cooper said the UNESCO listing sent “a clear signal to the Australian Government and Woodside that things need to change”.

Making the UNESCO’s heritage list does not in itself trigger protection for a site, but can help pressure national governments into taking action.

African heritage boosted

Cameroon’s Mandara Mountains and Malawi’s Mount Mulanje were also added to the latest edition of the UNESCO World Heritage list.

UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay has presented Africa as a priority during her two terms in office, although the continent remains underrepresented.

The Diy-Gid-Biy landscape of the Mandara Mountains, in the far north of Cameroon, consists of archaeological sites, probably created between the 12th and 17th centuries.

Malawi’s Mount Mulanje, in the south of the country, is considered a sacred place inhabited by gods, spirits and ancestors.

UNESCO is also considering applications from two other African countries, namely the Gola Tiwai forests in Sierra Leone and the biosphere reserve of the Bijagos Archipelago in Guinea-Bissau.

On Friday, UNESCO also listed three notorious Cambodian torture and execution sites used by the Khmer Rouge regime to perpetrate genocide 50 years ago.