WORLD AGENDA 2005

JANUARY 
Elections are due to take place in post-war Iraq providing violence does not derail the process. A 275-member assembly will be voted in.

The new head of the PLO, Mahmoud Abbas, is favourite to become president of the Palestinian Authority, replacing Yasser Arafat who died in November, when Palestinians go to the polls. 


FEBRUARY

The Kyoto Protocol, which aims to stem global warming by reducing greenhouse gas emissions, comes into force. The 55 industrialised nations that ratified the pact have until 2012 to cut six key greenhouse emissions to 5.2 per cent below the 1990 level.

The European Union decides whether to extend sanctions against Zimbabwe.


MARCH

ZimbabweÕs opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has said his Movement for Democratic Change party will take part in parliamentary elections only if electoral reforms are implemented. Elections in 2000 and 2002 were widely believed to have been rigged by President Robert Mugabe.


APRIL

Mark Thatcher, son of BritainÕs former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, appears in court in Cape Town charged with financing an alleged coup plot in Equatorial Guinea. Thatcher is accused of contributing $275,000 to help overthrow President Teodoro Obiang Nguema.

The 200th anniversary of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author of The EmperorÕs New Clothes, is celebrated around the world.


MAY

Nasa is due to launch Discovery, the first space shuttle flight since Columbia crashed in 2003 killing all seven astronauts on board. The launch, from FloridaÕs Kennedy Space Centre, was put back from March after two hurricanes hit the complex last summer.

World Turtle Day seeks to reverse the fortunes of a species which has been on the earth for 200 million years but now faces extinction due to their use as a delicacy and in traditional Chinese medicine.

Britain is expected to go to the polls with Prime Minister Tony Blair seeking a third term in office.


JUNE

Women will be barred from standing in IranÕs presidential election after the GuardianÕs Council ruled that their participation would be unconstitutional. The poll comes at the end of President Mohammad KhatamiÕs second and therefore final term in office.

George Lucas, creator of Star Wars and Indiana Jones, is to be awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Film Institute in Hollywood.


JULY

The venue for the 2012 Olympic Games is decided when the International Olympic Committee meets in Singapore to choose between Paris, New York, Moscow, London and Madrid.


AUGUST

Eighty-four-year-old Pope John Paul II plans to visit World Youth Day celebrations in Germany, despite ailing health which mostly confines him to a wheelchair.


SEPTEMBER

Mohamed ElBaradei seeks re-election as chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency for a third term, despite opposition to his reappointment from the Bush administration.

All 8,000 Jewish settlers will have left Gaza in return for thousands of dollars in state compensation per family if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel SharonÕs hotly contested disengagement plan goes ahead. The strip of land on the Mediterranean, home to 1.3 million Palestinians, has been under occupation since 1967.


OCTOBER

A verdict in the trial of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, charged with committing war crimes in the 1990s, is expected. Milosevic, 63, who is defending himself, has dismissed the tribunal as illegal.

Luciano Pavarotti turns 70. The tenor, who has sold 100 million albums in a 43-year career, has said he plans to retire at the end of a 40-city tour.


NOVEMBER

Venus Express, a European Space Agency mission, is launched by a Soyuz-Fregat rocket from Kazakhstan.


DECEMBER

The World Health Organisation aims to have treated three million people living with Aids in poor countries.