Portal:Current events/2007 November 16

November 16, 2007 (Friday)

An Airbus A340-600, scheduled to be delivered at Etihad Airways' base in Abu Dhabi, crashes into a barrier at Toulouse Blagnac International Airport during tests. Five people are injured. (BBC)
Russia's deputy finance minister Sergei Storchak, one of Russia's top officials on international financial relations, is detained as part of a criminal investigation. (AP)
2007 Georgian demonstrations:
- President Mikheil Saakashvili lifts the state of emergency that was imposed on November 6. (BBC)
- Prime Minister of Georgia Zurab Noghaideli resigns citing health problems; President Mikheil Saakashvili nominates Lado Gurgenidze as Noghaideli's successor. (Civil Georgia)^{[permanent dead link‍]}
The Nepali Supreme Court rejects a plea for conducting a Constituent Assembly election on November 22 saying the prescribed date is more of a moral question rather than a legal one.^{[citation needed]}
Strikes in France: French train drivers' strike against President Nicolas Sarkozy's pension reform enters its third day. (BBC)
German architect Heike Hanada of Weimar wins the international competition for extending the Stockholm Public Library. (Dagens Nyheter) (Asplund Competition)
The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda sentences Juvénal Rugambarara, the former mayor of Bicumbi, to 11 years in jail for crimes he committed during the Rwandan Genocide. (BBC)
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon holds talks with Lebanese political leaders, trying to break an impasse over the election of the next President. (BBC)
The German train driver strike enters its third day. (BBC)
Turkish prosecutors ask the Constitutional Court to ban the Kurdish Democratic Society Party, claiming it has links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party. (BBC)
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe announces it will not be able to monitor the 2007 Russian legislative election since its staff has been denied visas. (BBC)
2007 Pakistani state of emergency:
- United States Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte speaks with former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on the phone and tells her that "moderate forces" should work together to bring the country back to democracy. (BBC)
- Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto says the new interim government is "not acceptable" and "there can be no fair and free elections under the emergency." (BBC)
- Muhammad Mian Soomro, hitherto Chairman of the Senate, is sworn in as interim Prime Minister. (China Daily)
- Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is released from house arrest, but there are still dozens of policemen around her house. (BBC)
Donald Tusk, leader of the Civic Platform party, is sworn in as Prime Minister of Poland in coalition with the Polish People's Party. (BBC)
Police in Uttar Pradesh arrest three Pakistani members of Jaish-e-Mohammed who were plotting to kidnap an Indian politician. (BBC)
Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda flies to the United States to hold talks with U.S. President George W. Bush. (BBC)
The death toll from Cyclone Sidr increases to 242 as the storm weakens and passes through the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka. (BBC)
Former Russian frogman Eduard Koltsov claims he killed British diver Lionel Crabb while he was spying on a Soviet warship in 1956. (BBC)
U.S. Senator John Kerry accepts T. Boone Pickens' one-million-dollar Swift Boat challenge. (AP)