Portal:Current events/2009 October 4
October 4, 2009 (Sunday)
- Shōichi Nakagawa, the former Japanese Finance Minister who resigned over apparent drunken behaviour at the 2009 G7 meeting in Rome, is found dead in Tokyo. (Japan Today) (Al Jazeera) (The Times)
- Greek legislative election: Voters go to polls for a snap election. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
- Socialists win national elections in Greece, defeating a center-right government crippled by corruption scandals and a growing economic crisis. (NY Times)
- Prime Minister-elect and PASOK leader George Papandreou promises to support the green economy and to deploy a stimulus package, as PM and New Democracy leader Kostas Karamanlis concedes defeat. (BBC)(CBC)
- Pressure increases on the Czech and Polish nations to approve the Treaty of Lisbon; Polish President Lech Kaczyński is expected to sign it following the second Irish referendum but Czech President Václav Klaus continues to decline. (RTÉ) (The Daily Telegraph)
- Nicolas Sarkozy has reportedly told David Cameron that it was "stupid" of him to pull the Conservative Party out of the European People's Party, with other world leaders such as Angela Merkel and Barack Obama also expressing their surprise at the move. (The Sunday Telegraph)
- A strong 6.3 earthquake hits Taiwan in the middle of the night, waking people up in the capital Taipei. (Channel News Asia) (The Irish Times)
- Pope Benedict XVI opens a three-week synod of African bishops with a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. (BBC) (The Washington Post)
- Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao commences his three-day visit to North Korea, and is greeted at the airport by ailing leader Kim Jong-il. (BBC) (Xinhua) (Yonhap)
- The British and French governments announce a "historic" £2.5 billion allocation to the International Monetary Fund to help less wealthy countries. (BBC)
- One of the last prominent militant leaders in Nigeria's Niger Delta region, Government Ekpemupolo (Tompolo), agrees to an amnesty with the government. (Daily Nation) (BBC) (Vanguard)