ADDIS ABABA : African Leaders Meet

It’s sometimes been criticized as an ineffective talking shop, but the Organization of African Unity’s annual meeting, which begins Thursday with meetings of foreign ministers in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, may be uncharacteristically meaty.

Later, African National Congress deputy president Nelson Mandela will address heads of state of the 50 member countries. Among items on the summit agenda are sanctions against South Africa, the question of how to respond to a feared diversion of Western aid from Africa to Eastern Europe, and the West’s increasing insistence that aid be linked to democratic reforms. Former Italian Prime Minister Bettino Craxi will also speak as the U.N. Secretary General’s special representative on Third World debt.