In the World

PRETORIA, South Africa - President Jacob Zuma moved South Africa's respected finance minister to a new and powerful central-planning post and made other cabinet appointments yesterday that underlined a drive to make government more responsive and effective.

The changes indicated no major changes in policy and gave no signs Zuma might swing left, though key posts were given to a trade unionist and a leader of the South African Communist Party after the two groups gave Zuma's governing African National Congress major support during last month's elections.

Zuma, installed Saturday as president, expanded the cabinet from 28 to 34 ministers and created a post responsible for monitoring government performance.

- AP

REYKJAVIK, Iceland - Iceland's new government said yesterday that it would ask parliament to vote on whether the recession-slammed country should start membership talks with the European Union.

Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir said a bill authorizing accession talks would be introduced Friday.

She and Finance Minister Steingrimur J. Sigfusson have agreed on a coalition government. Earlier talks between the two snagged on whether Iceland should seek to join the 27-nation EU and potentially adopt the euro - seen by many Icelanders as the country's best route out of financial crisis and a move supported by Sigurdardottir's party.

- AP

BEIJING - A Chinese man returning from studying at an unspecified U.S. university has become the first suspected case of swine flu in mainland China, the Health Ministry said yesterday.

The ministry identified the patient as a 30-year-old student surnamed Bao. It said he left St. Louis on a Thursday flight and arrived in Tokyo via St. Paul, Minn. From Tokyo, he took a Northwest Airlines flight to Beijing.

Worldwide, the virus has killed at least 53 people and sickened more than 4,370 in 29 countries, mostly in the United States and Mexico, but has largely spared Asia.

- AP

Gunmen killed nine people in three attacks in Mexico's drug-plagued western state of Michoacan, authorities said yesterday. The gunmen broke into a ranch and shot dead five employees. Three brothers were shot to death in the city of Zamora in a separate attack, and another was killed by gunmen in Arteaga. Drug gangs were suspected.

Mortars and machine-gun fire yesterday rocked Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, leveling homes and a mosque in renewed violence that killed at least 35 people over the weekend as pro-government Islamist fighters clashed with gunmen who want to topple the Western-backed government, officials said.