Briefly

SOUTH AFRICA

Pretoria to boost U.N.-AU linkage

PRETORIA — South Africa said yesterday it plans to use its presidency of the U.N. Security Council to enhance security cooperation between the world body and the African Union on the continent.

Deputy Foreign Minister Aziz Pahad told reporters here that South Africa would call a summit this month at the United Nations to discuss conflict resolution in Africa.

“On April 16 and 17, South Africa, as president of the U.N. Security Council, will convene a debate at the level of heads of state with an aim to adopt concrete measures on strengthening the relations between members of the Security Council and of the African Peace and Security Council,” Mr. Pahad said.

He spoke during the opening of a bi-national commission meeting in Pretoria with the Democratic Republic of Congo that will be joined tomorrow by Congolese President Joseph Kabila and South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki.

KENYA

Accusations fly amid deadlock

NAIROBI — Kenya’s opposition yesterday accused the government of trying to spoil a power-sharing deal by seeking to vet new Cabinet ministers, a move that targets opposition politicians it blames for postelection violence.

President Mwai Kibaki and opposition chief Raila Odinga are at odds over the shape and size of a coalition Cabinet created under a pact to solve a postelection crisis that degenerated into ethnic violence that killed more than 1,200 people.

The deal brokered by former U.N. chief Kofi Annan brought a sense of stability and a financial rebound to the East African nation, which saw the prospects of its economy — one of the brightest in Africa — seriously hampered by the violence.

But more than a month has passed since the deal that will make Mr. Odinga the prime minister, and many Kenyans are frustrated at the deadlock over the Cabinet. It is supposed to be split roughly in half between Mr. Odinga’s Orange Democratic Movement and Kibaki-allied parties.

Mr. Annan in a statement yesterday said he was “seriously concerned by the failure to compose and announce the coalition government” and urged Mr. Kibaki and Mr. Odinga to “come to definite decisions for the sake of the Kenyan nation.”

MAURITANIA

Suspect in killings escapes custody

NOUAKCHOTT — A man accused of killing four French tourists escaped from a courthouse after an interrogation session yesterday, tricking guards who believed he was inside a restroom, a courthouse official and a witness said.

Sidi Ould Sidna was arrested in January in connection with the killings of the tourists, who were gunned down on the side of a highway in Mauritania, a relatively stable democracy in West Africa.

The killing of the tourists and a subsequent attack on a Mauritanian military outpost led organizers of the Dakar Rally to cancel the race’s trans-Saharan course, moving the race to Latin America, a major blow to the economy of the desert region.

From wire dispatches and staff reports