A British journalist has been narrowly re-elected to the presidency of the International Federation of Journalists at its world congress in Dublin.

Oxford-based Jim Boumelha, a former president of the National Union of Journalists, will now begin his third term as leader of the IFJ after defeating Belgian Phillipe Leruth by 191 votes to 178.

Jim, who was born in Morocco led one of the longest strikes in NUJ history against Robert Maxwell’s Pergamon Press to secure trade union recognition.

He now works as a freelance and writes news and features for several health publications, on media issues, on race relations issues and occasionally on foreign affairs for the weekly Tribune.