Portal:Current events/2009 December 31
December 31, 2009 (Thursday)
- A High Court in Malaysia rules that the country's Christians have a constitutional right to use the word Allah in reference to God, declaring the government's ban on the use of Allah by non-Muslims as unconstitutional. (BBC News)
- Former Catholic Primate of All Ireland Cardinal Cahal Daly, "the hierarchy's foremost theologian and its most trenchant critic of politically-inspired violence", dies in Belfast aged 92. (RTÉ) (The Daily Telegraph) (The Irish Times) (Reuters)
- Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade issues an apology to "humiliated" Christians for comparing an "idolatrous" statue to Jesus Christ. (BBC) (Daily Nation)
- Two French journalists and their translator are kidnapped in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan. (CNN) (Sky News) (Radio Netherlands Worldwide)
- The Althing (Icelandic parliament) approves the payment of €3.8 billion to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands as deposit insurance for the collapsed Icesave savings scheme. (BBC News)
- The Government of Serbia decides to sue Croatia for genocide before the International Court of Justice. (B92)
- The University of Cambridge successfully acquires a collection of Siegfried Sassoon's personal papers for £1.25 million, following a six-month fundraising campaign. (BBC) (Reuters)
- At least six people are killed by a gunman at a shopping centre in Espoo, near Helsinki. (YLE) (BBC) (The Times) (Reuters)
- Lithuania shuts the Baltic region's one and only nuclear power station in Visaginas. The Lithuanian nuclear power station provides 70% of the nation's energy and was traded for membership to the European Union. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph)
- Les Choristes by Impressionist artist Edgar Degas mysteriously disappears from Marseilles's Cantini Museum. (BBC) (France 24) (Boston Globe) (Reuters)
- Van Morrison tells RTÉ News at One that a baby his own website claimed he has fathered does not exist and that he has never met the alleged mother. (RTÉ) (The Times) (ABC News) (The Guardian) (Statement)
- Patrick Stewart, the actor who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Professor X in X-Men, is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. (CNN) (News10) (The Guardian)
- Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur. (CNN) (ABC News) (Space) (Wikinews) (RTÉ)