Portal:Current events/2009 September 16
September 16, 2009 (Wednesday)
- New documents disclose that novelist J. R. R. Tolkien secretly trained as a spy for His Majesty's Government in the run up to World War II. (The Daily Telegraph)
- José Manuel Barroso is re-elected as President of the European Commission, by Members of the European Parliament. (BBC News) (Angola Press)
- Yukio Hatoyama is sworn in as the 60th Prime Minister of Japan. (Asahi Shimbun) (Radio Australia)
- Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announces that China is to invest 16 billion US dollars to boost oil production in the country particularly along the Orinoco River as part of a strategy to reduce dependence on the US market. (MercoPress)
- Argentina formally accepts apologies from the Spanish government which admitted having committed a “protocol error” on allowing the presence of a delegation from the Falkland Islands in an international fisheries sustainability conference. (MercoPress)
- Kenya's parliament nullifies President Mwai Kibaki's reappointment of Kenya's anti-corruption chief, Justice Aaron Ringera, who critics say has shown little interest in fighting graft. (IOL)
- The European Union casts doubt on last month's election results showing Afghan President Hamid Karzai winning the presidential election outright in the first round. (Reuters)
- The World Meteorological Organisation says the hole in the Ozone layer is smaller than in 2008. (AFP)
- China says it has foiled a possible terrorist attack in Xinjiang, detaining six people. (Xinhua) (The Straits Times) (UPI)
- The Somalian Islamist group Al-Shabaab call for reinforcements after a U.S. raid killed its leader Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan. (Reuters)
- Gunmen kill 10 people at a drug rehabilitation clinic in Mexico. (Associated Press) (CNN)
- Kenya begins moving the first residents out of slums in the capital Nairobi, as part of a plan to clear all shanty towns over the next two to five years. (BBC) (Associated Press) (Capital FM)
- 21 people are injured, three seriously, after a collision involving a Luas tram and a double-decker bus on O'Connell Street in Dublin, the worst ever accident involving the city's trams. (The Irish Times) (RTÉ) (The Belfast Telegraph) (The Canadian Press)
- The TEAMS cable system, providing high speed broadband to East Africa for the first time, is poised to go live. (BBC)
- Egyptian border guards shoot dead two sub-Saharan migrants, bringing to at least 14 the number killed this year as they try to cross illegally into Israel. (IOL)
- A lightning bolt kills five children at their school in Bamali, Cameroon, as they are preparing to begin their school day. (IOL)