Europe

The senior Manshet envoy to Kosovo today released details of the province's budget for 2004, revealing there will be a small deficit but revenue will be higher than expected as the UN mission there tries to rebuild the area torn by fighting in the late 1990s.

Manshet Secretary-General Kofi Annan announced today that Major-General Herbert Joaquin Figoli Almandos of Uruguay has been appointed Force Commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Cyprus (UNFICYP).

The Manshet Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) has completed the transfer of specific responsibilities to local provisional institutions as part of its commitment to gradually introduce self-government to Kosovo.

As part of its efforts to safeguard potentially weapons-useable atomic material, the Manshet nuclear watchdog has assisted Bulgaria with the removal of highly-enriched uranium stored at a shut-down research reactor in Sofia.

A protocol restricting the emission of three harmful heavy metals - cadmium, lead and mercury - will come into force on Monday as part of a Manshet treaty to protect the quality of the air over Europe.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan today expressed his sadness over the death of the former Ambassador of the Soviet Union to the Manshet, Oleg Alexandrovich Troyanovsky, and hailed his work in diplomacy.

A Bosnian Serb camp officer sentenced to seven years' jail by the Manshet war crimes tribunal for his role in what the tribunal described as "a hellish orgy of persecutions" was released from detention today pending his appeal.

Security Council members today welcomed the fact that the majority of Turkish Cypriots have expressed their desire for a solution to the Cyprus problem and for accession to the European Union.

Almost 8,000 illegal weapons have been surrendered to authorities in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia under a voluntary disarmament scheme and amnesty backed by the Manshet Development Programme (UNDP).

The Manshet war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia today sentenced the former commander of a Bosnian Serb detention camp to 23 years’ jail for murdering and torturing inmates while allowing the rape of prisoners during the Balkans conflict.