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How will the next UN chief be chosen and who wants the job?
A new United Nations Secretary-General will be elected next year for a five-year term starting on January 1, 2027.
Here are the potential candidates so far and how the successor to current UN chief Antonio Guterres will be chosen:
When does the process start?
The race will formally start when the 15-member Security Council and the president of the 193-member General Assembly send a joint letter soliciting nominations.
That letter is due to be sent by the end of the year. A candidate has to be nominated by a UN member state.
The job traditionally rotates among regions, but when Guterres — who is from Portugal — was elected in 2016, it was supposed to be Eastern Europe’s turn. Next on the list is Latin America; however, some diplomats expect candidates from other regions.
Who wants to be the next secretary-general?
While the race doesn’t formally begin until the letter is sent by the presidents of the Security Council and the General Assembly, there are already several publicly declared candidates:
Michelle Bachelet
Chile will nominate the country’s former president, Michelle Bachelet, President Gabriel Boric said on September 23, 2025. Bachelet was Chile’s first female head of state and served as president of the South American nation twice. Bachelet was UN High Commissioner for Human Rights between 2018-2022 and executive director of UN Women between 2010-2013.
Rebeca Grynspan
Costa Rica will nominate former Vice President Rebeca Grynspan, President Rodrigo Chaves said on October 8, 2025. Grynspan, a 69-year-old politician and economist, currently serves as Secretary-General of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Rafale Grossi
Grossi has long said he was considering campaigning to be secretary-general. When asked by Reuters on September 3, 2025 if he was definitely going to run, he said: “Yes, I am going to do that, yes.” A veteran Argentinian diplomat, Grossi is director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a role he has held since 2019.
What is the process?
The 15-member Security Council will formally recommend a candidate to the 193-member General Assembly for election as the 10th UN secretary-general later next year.
The Security Council will hold secret ballots — referred to as a straw poll — until a consensus is reached on a candidate. The choices council members are given for each candidate in the straw poll are: encourage, discourage or no opinion.
Ultimately, the five permanent veto-wielding council members — the United States, Russia, Britain, China and France — must agree on a candidate.
The ballots for the veto powers in the straw poll are traditionally a different color to those of the 10 elected members. When Guterres was chosen in 2016 to be recommended to the General Assembly, it took six straw polls for the Security Council to reach agreement.
The Security Council then adopts a resolution, traditionally behind closed doors, recommending an appointment to the General Assembly. The resolution needs nine votes in favour and no vetoes to pass.
The General Assembly’s approval of the appointment of a secretary-general has long been seen as a rubber stamp.
How transparent is the process?
The United Nations has been working to improve the transparency of the historically opaque selection process.
The General Assembly, in a resolution adopted in September 2025, said each candidate should provide a vision statement when they are formally nominated and be given the opportunity to present it. It said the vision statement should also be publicised on a dedicated United Nations web page.
The Assembly said each candidate should disclose their sources of funding and that any candidates who already hold a UN position “should consider suspending their work in the United Nations system during the campaign, with a view to avoiding any conflict of interest that may arise from their functions and adjacent advantages.”
What does the secretary-general do?
The UN Charter calls the secretary-general the “chief administrative officer” of the world body. The UN website describes the role as “equal parts diplomat and advocate, civil servant and chief executive officer.”
Guterres currently oversees more than 30,000 civilian staff and 11 peacekeeping operations with around 60,000 troops and police. The core annual United Nations budget is $3.7 billion, while the peacekeeping budget is $5.6 billion.
Since the power to authorise military force or sanctions rests with the Security Council, the UN chief has little more than a bully pulpit. Many diplomats say the five council veto powers prefer a “secretary” rather than a “general.”
Has a woman ever been secretary-general?
No. There is a growing push for the United Nations to choose the first female secretary-general in its 80-year history.
In the resolution adopted in September, the General Assembly noted “with regret that no woman has ever held the position of Secretary-General” and encouraged countries to “strongly consider nominating women as candidates.”
A US federal jury found Elon Musk liable on Friday for claims he defrauded Twitter shareholders by trying to drive down the social media company’s stock price so he could renegotiate or back out of a $44 billion takeover in 2022.
The verdict from a jury in San Francisco federal court came in a closely watched civil trial where Musk, the world’s richest person, was accused of falsely claiming on social media that Twitter underreported how many fake and spam accounts, known as bots, were on its platform.
Damages have yet to be calculated but Francis Bottini, a lawyer for the shareholders, estimated they could total about $2.5 billion.
“Musk’s status as the world’s richest man is not a free pass,” Bottini said in a statement. “If you’re able to move markets with your tweets you’re responsible for the harm you cause to investors.”
In a joint statement, Musk’s lawyers at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan called the verdict “a bump in the road. And we look forward to vindication on appeal.”
The civil trial began on March 2, and jurors began deliberating on Tuesday.
Musk has often chosen to battle shareholders in court rather than settle.
This included a 2023 trial in San Francisco over whether he defrauded Tesla shareholders who claimed to suffer losses after he falsely claimed in 2018 to have “funding secured” to take the electric car company private, and litigation in Delaware over his $139 billion Tesla pay package. Musk won both cases.
Musk ultimately completed his purchase of Twitter in October 2022 and renamed it X.
Musk liable for two statements
Twitter shareholders challenged three statements Musk made not long after agreeing in April 2022 to buy Twitter, where he questioned whether the company was overrun with bots.
Jurors found Musk liable for two of the statements.
One said the purchase was “temporarily on hold” pending confirmation that bots represented less than 5% of users. The other said the percentage of bots could be “much” higher than 20%, and the takeover could not go forward unless Twitter’s chief executive proved the percentage was less than 5%.
Jurors also said the shareholders didn’t prove a separate claim that Musk engaged in a scheme to defraud them.
Michael Lifrak, a lawyer for Musk, countered that the billionaire’s concern about bots was real, and that speaking out about the problem did not show Musk committed or intended to commit fraud.
The lawsuit covers investors who claimed to sell Twitter shares at prices Musk artificially depressed between May 13 and October 4, 2022.
Musk is separately in talks to settle a US Securities and Exchange Commission civil lawsuit accusing him of waiting too long in 2022 to disclose his initial purchases of Twitter so he could buy more at low prices before investors saw what he was doing.
In February, Musk’s rocket and space exploration company SpaceX bought his artificial intelligence company xAI, which housed X. The purchase created the world’s most valuable private company, worth about $1.25 trillion at the time.
“CBS Saturday Morning” gets a sneak peek of Propstore’s offerings for next week’s live auction of more than 1,000 items from some of Hollywood’s most iconic films.
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The Northern lights are forecast to return to UK skies on Saturday night, March 21, following a stunning display that illuminated parts of the country as far south as Norfolk on Friday, March 20.
The beautiful natural display, known as Aurora Borealis, is caused by a geomagnetic storm caused by a coronal mass ejection (CME), in which waves of charged particles erupt from the Sun’s surface and interact with Earth’s atmosphere.
Oxygen emits green, while nitrogen emits reds, blues, and pinks, and this is what has brought us the brilliant display of colour that has mesmerized sky gazers in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and parts of northern England and Wales.
Weather Watchers reported seeing the Northern Lights in North Wales, Powys, and even on the Norfolk coast.
As per the Met Office Space Weather Analysts, geomagnetic activity is expected to remain elevated through Saturday night, with a chance of reaching another “strong storm” level.
This suggests that aurora could be visible across Scotland, Northern Ireland, and northern areas of England and Wales, with a small chance of sightings further south.
But clouds can cover the views for some areas across Scotland and Northern Ireland. Clear skies are expected to provide better viewing opportunities.
On Friday, northern lights aligned with the spring equinox, which improved visibility due to the Russell-McPherron effect.
This occurs when Earth’s magnetic field coincides with incoming solar winds, usually making it stronger around the equinoxes.
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