Boutros Boutros-Ghali, a veteran Egyptian diplomat who helped negotiate his country’s landmark peace deal with Israel but then clashed with the US when he served a single term as UN secretary-general, has died aged 93.

A former Egyptian finance minister has been sentenced in absentia to 30 years for squandering public funds and abusing his authority, the official state news agency says.

THE former head of the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq could face charges after a committee investigating the tainted programme said it had found enough evidence of a kickback scheme to support prosecution.

FORMER UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali spent the weekend in hospital after collapsing at a conference in Monaco on Saturday.

The United Nations Security Council today nominated Secretary-General Kofi Annan by acclamation for a second term at the helm of the world body, paving the way for his election by the 189-member General Assembly.