July 1: The United States will lift $191 billion of sanctions on European Union goods after Brussels and Washington resolve a long-running dispute over EU banana import rules. The banana war is just one of a series of transatlantic trade rows Ð the EU is now threatening to impose $4 billion of sanctions on U.S. goods over AmericaÕs ÒForeign Sales CorporationÓ programme, which it claims illegally grants tax breaks to major U.S. exporters.

July 1-3: The World Economic Forum signals a new direction with its first all-European economic summit. Heads of state and business leaders from eastern Europe will meet their counterparts from the rest of the Europe in Salzburg, Austria, to discuss EU enlargement, competitiveness and the viability of ÒEuropean Silicon Valleys.Ó

July 7: The 88th Tour de France takes to the roads in Dunkerque, with three gruelling weeks ahead before the survivors of the race reach the finish line on the Champs ElysŽes in Paris. Team doctors have been issued new rules on permitted drugs in a bid to shake off doping scandals in the sport.

July 7-8: Finals weekend at Wimbledon: will Pete Sampras win a record eighth title, and equal Bjorn BorgÕs feat of five successive triumphs? And can comeback kid Jennifer Capriati, winner of both the Australian and French Opens this year, complete the third leg of a season Grand Slam?

July 8: Scientists from across the world meet in Buenos Aires to present their latest findings to the first conference of the International Aids Society on the development and treatment of HIV.

July 10: A previously unknown draft of one of the closing chapters of James JoyceÕs epic 1922 novel Ulysses could fetch up to £1.2m when it is sold at SothebyÕs in London. Experts believe the 44 scrawled pages of the Eumaeus chapter could revolutionise the understanding of the Irish authorÕs work.

July 13: Either Beijing, Istanbul, Paris, Osaka or Toronto will be revealed as host of the 2008 Summer Games. The announcement in Moscow by the International Olympic Committee is followed three days later by the election of a successor to Juan Antonio Samaranch, retiring as IOC president after 21 years.

July 14: PakistanÕs military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, who dismissed the countryÕs president in June and assumed the title himself, heads to New Delhi for talks with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee over the long-disputed Kashmir region. It will be the first summit between the arch-enemy nuclear power neighbours in more than two years.

July 16: World leaders aim to settle the quarrel over global warming when they reconvene for climate talks in Bonn, Germany. The meeting Ð an extension of the failed UN conference on climate change held in The Hague last November Ð is seen as a last chance to save the Kyoto Protocol. The U.S., which has rejected the agreement, plans to present its own strategy.

July 17: Sri Lanka hopes to conduct its first census in 20 years, despite threats from separatist Tamil Tigers against anyone co-operating with the process. If successful, the headcount will reveal the impact of two decades of ethnic war on the island nationÕs different communities.

July 20: A huge security operation will surround G8 leaders meeting in Genoa for their annual summit. Thousands of police and soldiers, backed by aircraft and ships, plan to all but seal off the Italian city amid fears that anti-globalisation protestors, joined by others including perhaps Basque separatists, will bring even worse violence than at the recent EU summit in Sweden. They are reported to have ordered 200 body bags.

Late July: JapanÕs new prime minister Junichiro Koizumi is banking on his huge popularity to clinch victory for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party in crucial upper house elections. The outcome of the national poll will decide if Koizumi can push forward with potentially painful economic reform at a time when the economy is sliding back into recession.