WORLD AGENDA OCTOBER

October 3/5, European Union: Controversy surrounds EU accession talks due to begin with Turkey (Oct 3) and Serbia and Croatia (Oct 5). Ankara still refuses to recognise Cyprus while, in the former Yugoslavia, Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, both indicted for genocide, are still at large.

October 11, Liberia: The first elections since the end, in 2003, of a 14-year war take place in a nation that once boasted a thriving economy. The conflict, one of the worst in modern Africa, produced a generation of young gunmen.

October 11, Cape Town: Tensions will rise in South Africa when the former deputy president goes on trial for corruption in a case which has threatened to split the governing African National Congress. Jacob ZumaÕs supporters say the charges are a politically-motivated conspiracy.

October 13, Jiuquan: China plans to launch its second manned space mission.

October 15, Beijing: International Monetary Fund and World Bank reform will be discussed at a meeting of finance ministers and Central Bank governors from the Group of 20 countries which account for 90 percent of world output and 80 percent of trade.

October 15/19, Baghdad: The spotlight will be on Iraq when a referendum is held on the new draft constitution on October 15, and the first in a series of trials of Saddam Hussein opens on October 19. The former dictator will be charged with the 1982 massacre of 143 Shiite Muslims in Dujail, northeast of the capital.

October 23, Brazil: The country with the highest number of gun deaths in the world -- around 100 every day -- votes in a referendum on whether to ban outright the sale of firearms. Opinion polls suggest most are in favour.

October 23, Sydney: Saplings of a tree that dinosaurs ate and was believed to also be extinct will be sold through auction. Wollemi pines were known only from fossil records dating back 90 million years until a cluster was discovered in Australia in 1994.

October (undated), New Orleans: Completion of the draining of the city devastated by floods caused by Hurricane Katrina is expected by early October. President George Bush says he aims to get evacuees living in shelters into longer-term housing by the middle of the month.

October (undated), Niger: The United NationsÕ World Food Programme plans to end general food aid distribution, a move some say will be a disaster for the countryÕs starving millions. The UN says it will concentrate on those most in need.

Presidential elections in Poland (Oct 9/23), Liberia (Oct 11), Cote dÕIvoire (Oct 30), Tanzania (Oct 30) and Zanzibar (Oct 30). Legislative elections in Liberia (Oct 11), Argentina (Oct 23) and Tanzania (Oct 30).
/ENDS