Portal:Current events/2009 August 21
August 21, 2009 (Friday)
- Argentina's association football championship kicks off after President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner puts it on the state payroll to avoid a financial crisis. (MercoPress)
- Brazil becomes Chile's third largest trading partner, displacing Japan, according to recently released government trade figures. (MercoPress)
- South African President Jacob Zuma makes a pilgrimage to a former anti-apartheid guerrilla camp in Angola where he lays a wreath and pays tribute to fallen comrades. (IOL)
- The presidents or heads of state of five nations, including Seretse Ian Khama of Botswana and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, along with ministers and musical troupes gather at the cricket stadium in Oranjemund, Namibia, for a welcoming ceremony at the conclusion of explorer Kingsley Holgate's latest expedition, which took him through nine countries. (IOL)
- William Calley, the former US army officer found guilty of organizing mass killings in the Vietnamese community of My Lai during the Vietnam War makes a public apology.(NPR)
- A missile fired from a U.S. unmanned plane destroyed a suspected militant hide-out in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing at least 12 people in a stronghold of a jihadi leader blamed for attacks in Afghanistan. (Associated Press)
- Four policemen are killed after 4 suicide bombs on bicycles detonate in Grozny, Chechnya. (RIA Novosti) (AFP) (Al Jazeera)
- A North Korean delegation arrives in South Korea to mourn the death of former South Korean President Kim Dae-jung. (Al Jazeera) (Yonhap) (China Daily)
- 20 people are killed and 40 injured after clashes between pro-government and Islamist forces in Mogadishu, Somalia. (Bloomberg)
- A rockfall on a beach in the Algarve, Portugal, kills 5 holidaymakers and injures several others. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph) (euronews)
- Mexico decriminalises the use of small amounts of marijuana, cocaine, heroin and other drugs for "personal use". (The Times of India) (Al Jazeera)
- U.S. President Barack Obama condemns Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi's homecoming in Libya. (CNN)
- A 34-year-old Tunisian woman from Gafsa, thought to have been pregnant with 12 babies and whose story had attracted international attention, is determined to have been the victim of a phantom pregnancy. (IOL)
- László Sólyom, President of Hungary was declared unwelcome by Slovakia and was not allowed to step on Slovak soil to attend an unveiling of a statue depicting King Saint Stephen, first King of Hungary. (BBC)