WORLD AGENDA MAY 2014

May 7, Johannesburg: The African National Congress, in power since apartheid ended 20 years ago, is expected to easily win South Africa's election but with a reduced majority. Support has waned amid scandals such as President Jacob Zuma's $23 million upgrade to his home.

May 7, London: The former chairman of Britain's Co-op Bank, favoured for its ethical stance, is due in court charged with possessing illegal drugs. Paul Flowers, a former Methodist minister, had no banking qualifications when he was appointed to the post in 2009.

May 7-9, Abuja: Nigeria hosts the World Economic Forum on Africa amid tight security due to ongoing violence by Boko Haram Islamists. A recent bomb attack in the capital killed at least 75 people and injured over 120 others.

May 8, San José: Costa Rica's president-elect Luis Guillermo Solis, who secured a landslide victory with 78% of the vote in April's presidential election, is inaugurated in the capital.

May 9-13, New York: A new posthumous Michael Jackson album, entitled Xscape and featuring eight "new" tracks, is released globally. Since Jackson's death in 2009, Epic has released reissue, remix and compilation albums and This is It, featuring six previously unheard recordings.

May 14-25, Cannes: A woman director could win the prestigious Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival for only the second time. Italy's Alice Rohrwacher, with Le Meraviglie, and Japan's Naomi Kawase, with Two Windows, are in the running.

May 20, London: A score of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphony No 2, one of Russia's most important romantic compositions, is expected to fetch up to $2.52m at auction. The 320-page manuscript was discovered in the estate of a private collection in 2004.

May 24-26, Middle East: Pope Francis makes his first trip as pontiff to the Holy Land, visiting Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Amman. The sojourn gestures goodwill towards the Orthodox churches which separated from Rome 1,000 years ago, and encouragement towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

May 25, Kiev: Ukraine elects a new president amid the most serious East-West crisis since the Cold War. Tensions spiked with Russia's annexation in March of the country's Crimea region, which voted in favour of the move in a referendum Europe declared invalid.

May 25-26, Cairo: Egypt votes for a new president with former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expected to win. Al-Sisi led the overthrow of Islamist Mohamed Morsi who was elected in 2012 following the ousting of autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

May (undated), Beijing: Welfare group Animals Asia saves 130 Asiatic black bears when it takes over a bile extraction farm and converts it into a sanctuary. China keeps up to 10,000 bears in captivity for the live extraction of bile used in medicine.
/ENDS