World Scene

KENYA

Cabinet delay triggers protests

NAIROBI — Kenya’s opposition suspended talks with President Mwai Kibaki’s party yesterday and police fired tear gas to scatter opposition supporters protesting against deepening deadlock over a power-sharing Cabinet.

Mr. Kibaki and rival Raila Odinga delayed naming a Cabinet on Monday after disagreeing on how to share ministries, and they traded blame over who was responsible for the deadlock.

In Nairobi’s sprawling Kibera slum, residents said youths looted shops and burned tires. Some ripped up railway lines connecting the Kenyan port of Mombasa, the region’s largest, with Uganda. Protests spread to the western opposition stronghold of Kisumu, where police closed in on angry crowds.

EGYPT

Monitors detained during elections

CAIRO — Egyptian police detained independent monitors and barred rights groups from voting stations yesterday during local elections that generated little enthusiasm from Egyptians, the groups said.

The ruling National Democratic Party of President Hosni Mubarak won 70 percent of the 52,600 seats by default before polls even opened because the candidates faced no opposition, the state-owned Middle East News Agency reported.

The Muslim Brotherhood, the country’s most powerful opposition group, withdrew from the elections Monday and called on Egyptians to boycott the vote in protest at the disqualification of most of its candidates by the authorities.

KAZAKHSTAN

Korean astronaut blasts into space

BAIKONUR — As a Russian Soyuz spacecraft rose into the bright blue sky yesterday, spectators held their breaths, South Koreans celebrated their first astronaut and the astronaut’s mother fainted.

The flight itself — launched from the same pad that sent Yuri Gagarin and Sputnik into space — seemed flawless. The Soyuz spacecraft is scheduled to deliver Sergei Volkov, 35, the commander of the mission, cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko, 43, and Yi So-yeon, a 29-year-old South Korean bio-engineer, to the International Space Station tomorrow.

ZIMBABWE

Pro-Mugabe veterans evict 60 farmers

HARARE — More than 60 mostly white Zimbabwean farmers have been evicted from their land by war veterans loyal to President Robert Mugabe since the weekend, a farmers union said yesterday.

The veterans have been used as political shock troops by the president. The opposition party argued in the High Court yesterday that the results of the presidential election on March 29 should be released immediately to end a 10-day political stalemate.

The veterans said last week they would invade all remaining white-owned farms after reports that white farmers were preparing to grab back farms seized under Mr. Mugabe’s land reforms.

AFGHANISTAN

17 road workers killed in attack

KABUL — Militants killed 17 road workers in Afghanistan’s lawless south yesterday, part of a spike in violence that left 40 people dead over two days.

Sixteen other construction workers were wounded in the attack in Zabul’s Shinkay district, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Afghan and international security forces responding to the ambush killed seven militants and wounded 12.

From wire dispatches and staff reports