STRASBOURG, May 12 (AFP) - 14h13 - The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday upheld a ruling in favour of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan, saying that he had been unfairly tried by a Turkish court, and urged Ankara to retry him.
Ocalan was sentenced to death in a high-profile trial in 1999, but his sentence was commuted to a life sentence, which he is currently serving in the prison island of Imrali.

Thursday 12 May 2005 9:27 AM GMT
Kilometre Zero is the first Iraqi film chosen for the competition

Iraq - past and present - has made its presence felt at the Cannes film festival with two films, one Iraqi and one from Japan, being screened.

BRASILIA, Brazil, May 11 (Reuters) Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, on his first overseas trip since Iraq held elections, urged South American and Arab nations to help his country's reconstruction with investment.

Army Takes Offensive As Kurdish Rebels Return From Iraq

By Karl Vick - Washington Post Foreign Service - Tuesday, May 10, 2005; A12

PERVARI, Turkey - Residents of this town nestled in the cliffs of southeastern Turkey counted 86 military vehicles lurching deeper into the mountains one day last month, with foot soldiers peering out. Overhead, Cobra attack helicopters stuttered across an epic blue sky laced by the contrails of F-16 warplanes.

IBRAHIM JAAFARI: PRIME MINISTER
Ibrahim Jaafari, a 58-year-old physician, was spokesman for the Islamic Daawa Party, one of Iraq's oldest political parties. Born in Karbala in 1947, he was educated at Mosul university as a medical doctor. He lived in Iran and UK from the 1980s until the fall of Saddam Hussein. When he was serving in the mainly ceremonial role of vice-president in the US-appointed interim regime, an opinion poll last year suggested Mr Jaafari was Iraq's most popular politician. Mr Jaafari is widely seen as a unifying figure, keen to bring Sunni Arabs into the democratic fold after their widespread absence from election polling stations.

BAGHDAD, May 9 (AFP) - 11h56 - The Iraqi cabinet was sworn in for the second time in a week Monday after Kurdish leaders insisted a reference to federalism that had been removed from the original text be reinserted.

Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish politician newly inaugurated as president of Iraq
was interviewed by the BBC's Jim Muir in Baghdad. Monday, 18 April, 2005

Associated Press - Tue. May. 3 2005 6:17 AM ET
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq's incoming prime minister struggled to find a Sunni Arab to run the key Defense Ministry in time to join Iraq's first democratically elected government when it takes office Tuesday.

Smh.com.au
April 11, 2005 - A man who was an intelligence officer in the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein committed suicide after news that Jalal Talabani was sworn in as President of Iraq.

A chronology of key events:
1920 25 April - Iraq is placed under British mandate.