Germany's Merkel turns down UN job offer

BERLIN - Former German chancellor Angela Merkel has turned down the offer of a job at the United Nations, her office said on Wednesday (Jan 19), a month after she stepped down as Europe's most powerful politician after 16 years at the helm.

Dr Merkel, 67, called UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week to thank him for the job he had offered her in a letter, and to tell him she would not accept it, the office said, without elaborating.

German media reported that Mr Guterres had offered Dr Merkel the chair of a high-level UN advisory body on global public goods, one of his flagship reform projects.

It will focus on issues such as the ozone layer, vaccines and outer-space debris.

Dr Merkel, a conservative, has stayed out of the political spotlight since handing over Germany's chancellorship to Mr Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat.

She is working on a political memoir with her long-time aide, according to an interview in Der Spiegel, but little else is known about Dr Merkel's life in retirement.

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