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A former East Timorese militia member has been given a 15-year sentence for murdering a United Nations official during the violence that followed the territory's 1999 vote for independence.

East Timor's transitional administration saw a flurry of moves today and over the weekend as political activity began to heat up in the half-island territory ahead of the United Nations-sponsored elections next month.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan has appointed General Lamine Cissé, former Interior Minister of Senegal, as his Representative in the Central African Republic and Head of the United Nations Peace-building Support Office (BONUCA) in that country, a UN spokesman announced today at Headquarters.

Despite a lack of timely notification, the United Nations mission in Kosovo and the Kosovo international force have helped a large Serbian convoy to deliver humanitarian aid to various Serbian enclaves, a UN official in Pristina reported today.

Arguing that Africans, including African leaders, are now much less disposed to blame all their troubles on outsiders and more determined to take responsibility for their own future, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today called for greater international backing for the continent and stressed that the UN system had a crucial role to play in mobilizing and delivering that support.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan today said he hoped the agenda of the upcoming Group of Eight summit would include the problem of HIV/AIDS, which he described as a "scourge of frightening proportions" affecting all parts of the world.

Multilateral negotiations on climate change formally resumed this morning in Bonn following an agreement last night to begin work on resolving outstanding issues before the ministerial meeting on the United Nations climate change treaty begins on Thursday.

Government delegates today heard from representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as a United Nations conference on small arms and weapons began its second week in New York.

The United Nations special envoy on AIDS in Africa today met with President Daniel arap Moi of Kenya, who agreed to speak to other African leaders about his country's legislation on important drugs used in the fight against the deadly disease.

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) said today it had suspended the contract of one defence investigator and would not renew the contracts of three others because of allegations of their involvement in the 1994 genocide.