United Nations Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet speaks at the International Labour Conference (OIT) in Santiago December 19, 2011.

UNITED NATIONS | Fri Mar 15, 2013 9:21pm EDT

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet announced on Friday she would step down from a key U.N. post amid high expectations that the popular politician would campaign again for the top job in her homeland at a November election.

Speaking at the end of a U.N. policy-making conference on women's rights, Bachelet simply said she would leave her role as executive director of gender equality body U.N. Women to go "back to my country."

The pediatrician-turned-politician's 2006 to 2010 rule was one of Chile's most popular presidencies, thanks to Bachelet's amiable style, welfare policies and steady economic growth in one of the region's most developed countries.

Chile's fractured left-wing coalition, which President Sebastian Pinera ousted from a 20-year rule, is hoping Bachelet will stage a comeback. Pinera belongs to the right-wing Renovacion Nacional party.

Bachelet, a victim of torture under the brutal dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet and a single mother of three, was one of conservative Chile's most unusual presidents since the return to democracy in 1990.

But her legacy was tainted by her government's slow response providing aid and halting looting after a devastating 8.8 magnitude earthquake in February 2010.

Under Chilean law, Pinera is banned from running for a second consecutive term. Former Public Works Minister Laurence Golborne, a charismatic businessman, and former Defense Minister Andres Allamand, a seasoned politician, are jostling to be the right-wing bloc's candidate.

About 49 percent of Chileans say they want Bachelet to be the country's next president, versus 11 percent for Golborne and 5 percent for Allamand, pollster CEP said in January.

Bachelet has led U.N. Women, a body for gender equality and the empowerment of women, since it was created in 2010 by the U.N. General Assembly.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Friday praised her "visionary leadership" for giving it the start it needed.

"Her record of achievement includes new steps to protect women and girls from violence, new advances on health and a new understanding that women's empowerment must be at the core of all we do at the United Nations," he said in a statement.

"Her drive and compassion enabled her to mobilize and make a difference for millions of people across the world," he said.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols at the United Nations and Alexandra Ulmer in Santiago; Editing by Todd Eastham)

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Author J.K Rowling poses for photos with her certificate after being presented with the Freedom of the City of London, at Mansion House, central London May 8, 2012.

NEW YORK/LONDON | Wed Sep 26, 2012 4:09pm EDT

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) - Harry's still finished, but don't rule out any return to the Potter world.

Although J.K. Rowling's first novel tailored for adults is being released this week, she says her next book will likely be a children's book, and in the future she may pen a story related to the Harry Potter universe.

"I think it very likely that the next thing I publish will be for kids. I have a children's book that I really like, it's for slightly younger children than the Potter books," Rowling told the BBC in a television interview broadcast on Wednesday.

In one of a handful of appearances to promote "The Casual Vacancy," which hits bookstores worldwide on Thursday, Rowling told the BBC: "Truly, where Harry's story is concerned, I'm done.

Yet the 47-year-old best-selling British author did not rule out a Potter spin-off, while she was adamant it would never be for commercial reasons. The seven "Harry Potter" books have sold more than 450 million books worldwide.

"I have always left the door ajar because I'm not that cruel. If I had a fabulous idea that came out of that world, because I loved writing it, I would do it," she told the BBC.

"But I've got to have a great idea, I don't want to go mechanically into that world and pick up odds and ends and glue them together and say 'Here we go, we can sell this'. It would make a mockery of what those books were to me."

Were that great idea to come, she said: "I probably would do it. I'm very averse to the prequel/sequel idea. I've never seen it work well in either literature or film. That's a personal preference."

Rowling, who started her writing career as a financially struggling, single mother, said while there was clearly "an appetite for eight, nine, ten," Potter novels, she knew she only had enough plot for seven books about Harry's magical adventures.

"To go further would have been money for old rope. Couldn't do it. And that's largely why I slapped on that epilogue (in the final "Harry Potter" novel). (It) says he's leading a quiet life, and he's earned it. He's done," she said of the boy wizard.

POTTER DIRECTOR'S CUT, TEEN OCD

Rowling said she would have liked more time to work on some of the books.

"I had to write on the run and there were times when it was really tough. And I read them, and I think 'Oh God, maybe I'll go back and do a director's cut". I don't know," she said in BBC interview.

"But you know what?" she added. "I'm proud I was writing under the conditions under which I was writing. No one will ever know how tough it was at times."

In a separate interview with ABC's "Nightline", Rowling revealed that she had signs of obsessive-compulsive behavior when she was a teenager, and that one of the characters in "The Casual Vacancy" was drawn from her own experiences.

"These are things I know from the inside," she said in the interview, some of which was aired on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday. "When I was in my teens, I had issues with OCD ... checking things, it's very common, double checking, triple checking, it's an anxiety disorder."

Rowling has spoken openly in the past about dealing with depression, which she estimated she had not had to deal with for more than a decade.

She credited Harry Potter with helping. "Forget the money," she said; it gave her self-respect. "Harry gave me a job that I loved to do more than anything else," she told ABC.

(Additional reporting by Mike Collett-White in London, editing by Jill Serjeant and Gunna Dickson)

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