WORLD AGENDA SEPTEMBER 2009

September 1, Tripoli: Libya celebrates the 40th anniversary of the revolution that brought Muammar Gaddafi to power as the country emerges from years of sanctions amid controversy over the release from prison in Scotland of the man convicted of the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

September 2, United Nations: Western powers are expected to urge further sanctions on Iran if it refuses to curb its nuclear programme in six-nation talks with China and Russia. U.S. president Barack Obama set a September deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment.

September 3, Los Angeles: Pop star Michael Jackson, who died after a heart attack on June 25, is buried. The date was moved back three days after family members said they did not want him buried on what would have been his 51st birthday. The singer will be buried in a private ceremony at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, final resting place of a host of Hollywood greats.

September 3, Kabul: Preliminary results from Afghanistan's August 20 presidential elections are announced with final results two weeks later. The poll, disrupted by Taliban militants and fraud, is expected to be won by the western-backed President Hamid Karzai.

September 5, Nuremburg: Three watercolour paintings attributed to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler go under the hammer at Weidler's auction house. The works, depicting cottages, mills and churches, date from 1910 and 1911 when Hitler lived in Vienna as a struggling artist.

September 22, Paris: Mozart, the Rock Opera, a stage tribute to one of western music's greatest geniuses, opens at the Palais des Sports. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, a prolific classical composer and 18th century wild-haired rebel was, says the producer, "the first rock star".

September 24-25, Pittsburgh: G20 heads of state meet to give a major push towards creating a common approach to financial regulation. It's the third gathering of the world's major economic powers since the global recession began last November.

September 27, Berlin: Angela Merkel's personal popularity is set to return her Christian Democrat party (CDU) to power when Germany goes to the polls. The Chancellor is hoping to form a coalition with the centre-right, pro-business Free Democrats (FDP).

Late September, Ottawa: Canada's embattled minority Conservative government faces collapse if the main opposition Liberal Party goes ahead with its threat to introduce a motion of no-confidence. If the motion succeeds it would trigger the country's fourth election in just over five years.

September (undated), Nairobi: Kenya opens its first wind farm on the Ngong hills, west of the capital, as the country, like much of Africa, faces increasingly frequent power cuts. A further 11 sites are planned if tests go well.

September (undated), The Hague: The trial of the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, accused of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity, is expected to begin.
/ENDS