WORLD AGENDA MAY 2010

May 1, Shanghai: Expo 2010 opens in the Chinese city being heralded as a new major economic and cultural centre. A record 70 million visitors, along with 190 countries, 100 foreign leaders and 50 international organisations are expected to attend the six-month world fair.

May 2, Kabul: Politicians, civil society representatives and religious scholars attend President Hamid Karzai’s Peace Jirga – assembly – to promote reconciliation between Afghanistan’s warring factions. The Taliban is not invited and says it refuses enter talks while foreign troops are in the country.

May 3, Mumbai: A verdict is expected in the trial of Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, the suspected lone surviving gunman in the 2008 attacks on the Indian city. More than 160 people were killed when 10 men launched an assault that lasted three days.

May 3-28, New York: The 189 signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty meet to overhaul the 40-year-old arms agreement. On the agenda will be calls for a nuclear-free Middle East, Iran and North Korea’s atomic ambitions, and failure of the big powers to disarm.

May 6, London: Great Britain holds its most closely contested general election in nearly two decades. Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s ruling Labour party, in power for 13 years, stands against David Cameron’s Conservatives and an increasingly popular Nick Clegg, for the Liberal Democrats.

May 15, Tehran: Brazil’s president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, visits UN sanctions-hit Iran amid western unease over ties between the two countries. Latin America’s biggest economic power has urged dialogue with Tehran, instead of sanctions, over its nuclear programme.

May 23, Paris: Martina Navratilova, one of the greats of women’s tennis, commentates at the French Open, despite a recent diagnosis of breast cancer. The 53-year-old, who won 18 grand slam singles titles, will undergo radiation treatment during the tournament.

May 25, Boston: A deportation hearing for President Barack Obama’s aunt, Zeituni Onyango, is due to resume. The 57-year-old Kenyan half sister of Obama’s father was ordered to leave the United States in 2004.

May 26, New York: “Survivor”, a palm-sized Frida Kahlo painting of a pre-Hispanic idol that has not been seen in public for 72 years, goes under the hammer at Christie’s Latin American art sale. It is expected to fetch between $100,000 and $150,000.

May 30, Colombia: Presidential elections pitch the colourful Antanas Mockus against establishment candidate Juan Manuel Santos. As a university president, Mockus mooned at unruly students and as mayor of Bogota he posed as “Super Citizen” in a red cape and yellow tights.
/ENDS