UNESCO Marked 60th Anniversary

UNESCO marked its 60th anniversary with a symposium chaired by one of the great thinkers of the 20th century, the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss.

Levi-Strauss, who is 96, took part in a ceremony attended by UNESCO director-general Koichiro Matsuura and two of his predecessors, Amadou-Mahtar M´Bow and Federico Mayor.

The symposium, which brought together some 60 historians, anthropologists and philosophers, "reviewed from a critical perspective the intellectual, spiritual and philosophical ideas that have shaped UNESCO," a statement said.

Founded in London in 1945, UNESCO´s original goal was to use cultural and educational exchanges between nations to make war unthinkable. Today it has 191 members and six observers.