Kenya's opposition party, the Orange Democracy Movement (ODM), called a three-day mass rally in 24 Kenyan cities next week to protest against President Mwai Kibaki after international mediation talks failed, an ODM spokesman said Friday.

The mass rally, originally scheduled for Tuesday this week was cancelled to create a "peaceful frame" for mediation efforts by Ghanaian President and African Union leader John Kufuor, and will be held instead from Wednesday to Friday.

The government had not shown any willingness to hold talks, the spokesman added.

Kufuor left Nairobi Thursday evening for Accra without reaching an agreement.

Riot police last week broke up another mass rally against Kibaki using water cannon and teargas.

Further talks would be chaired by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan, who is expected to travel to Kenya next week, Kufuor said before departing.

Kibaki swore in his new cabinet, in which he also named opposition politicians as ministers, on Thursday amid opposition demands for new elections.

Kibaki said he wanted his cabinet to be broadly representative but no members of opposition leader Raila Odinga's ODM have been named therein.

All the key posts have already been filled, and even if ODM members were to enter the new government, it would only be in a peripheral role.

The new parliament, in which ODM has the most parliamentarians, is to convene next Tuesday. An alliance of youth and human rights groups has called for protests and spoke of the "blackest Tuesday in Kenya's democracy."

Kibaki was declared winner of the December 27 presidential polls three days after they were held. Odinga and his supporters, however, have charged the incumbent with widespread vote-rigging and refused to concede defeat.

So far, there have been no direct talks between Kibaki and the opposition.

A post-election crisis has led to the deaths of up to 600 people and the displacement of 250,000.

Humanitarian aid efforts for the displaced got under way Thursday as the Kenyan Red Cross began distributing food in the slums of Nairobi.

Nairobi's slums are among the largest in Africa, with most residents dependent on casual labour and out of work since unrest began.

However, many regions are inaccessible because of the precarious security situation.