WORLD AGENDA 2013

JANUARY
London: The 150th anniversary of the world's first underground railway. The British capital's Metropolitan Railway was carrying over 26,000 passengers a day within a few months of opening on January 10, 1863.

Washington DC: Barack Obama is sworn in for his second four-year term of office in the United States' 57th presidential inauguration ceremony.


FEBRUARY
Chinese around the world welcome the Year of the Snake, associated with grace, intelligence and material gainRussian president Vladimir Putin welcomes world leaders to St. Petersburg for the G20 summit.

New York: WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning stands trial in what is likely to be the biggest whistleblower case in U.S. history. The U.S. soldier is accused of leaking hundreds of thousands of secret state documents, including Afghanistan and Iraq war logs.


MARCH
Nairobi: Will Kenya avoid the bloody violence that followed the 2007 election when it goes to the polls? Candidates Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto face trial in The Hague over the deadly aftermath just weeks after the vote.


APRIL
Juba: Twenty-month old South Sudan holds its first peace and reconciliation conference in its capital in a bid to heal wounds that divide the newly independent nation. Extreme violence continues in the remote Jonglei state where inter-ethnic hostilities rage.

Ecuador: The country votes in a presidential election run-off which left-wing leader President Rafael Correa is favourite to win.


MAY
Mumbai: Bollywood celebrates its centenary, 100 years after the screening of its first film, the silent "Raja Harishchandra" by the father of Indian cinema Dadasaheb Phalke.


JUNE
France: The Tour de France is also in its centenary year with the event's hardest-ever Alpine finishes. The three-week cycling race begins, for the first time, in Corsica.

Tehran: Iran elects a new president amid hot debate over the extent of Muslim clerics' involvement in politics. Relations between supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the outgoing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have soured as his eight-year tenure comes to an end.


JULY
Brussels: Croatia becomes the second ex-Yugoslav country after Slovenia to join the European Union and the 28th member of the bloc. The accession follows a crackdown on graft, including the jailing of former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader.


AUGUST
New York: Abu Hamza, the Islamist cleric extradited from the UK after an eight-year legal battle, is due in court. The former imam, who has lost both hands and one eye, is accused of supporting al-Qaeda, kidnapping and plotting a training camp.


SEPTEMBER
Berlin: Angela Merkel bids for a third term in office with her popularity still high. The German Chancellor since 2005 is listed by Forbes as the world's second most powerful person, the highest ever ranking by a woman.


OCTOBER
Tbilisi: Presidential elections mark the end of Mikheil Saakashvili's eight-year tenure which, his critics say, has become increasingly autocratic. Georgia's constitutional changes see powers shift to billionaire prime minister Bidzina Ivanishvili.

St Petersburg: Russian president Vladimir Putin welcomes world leaders for the G20 summit.


NOVEMBER
United States: 50 years after the assassination of American President John F. Kennedy, conspiracy theories surrounding his death refuse to go away. The CIA, the KGB, the FBI and Mossad are just some of the parties suspected of involvement.

Cape Canaveral: Nasa launches a mission to Mars to understand the planet's climate changes, in particular its loss of water. The Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (Maven) project will examine what caused it to become increasingly inhospitable to life.


DECEMBER
Global: The desolation of Smaug, the second in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy is released. The epic action adventure series acts as a prequel to Jackson's Lord of the Rings series and stars Ian McKellen reprising his role as Gandalf.

Naypyidaw: Myanmar hosts the 27th South-East Asian Games for the third time and 44 years after it last did so. Its new capital, along with Yangon and Mandalay, will stage 32 sports played by 11 nations.
/ENDS