Portal:Current events/2009 November 17

November 17, 2009 (Tuesday)

A prominent human rights campaigner for the Western Sahara region, Aminatou Haidar, who is on hunger strike at an airport in the Canary Islands, is to appear in a Spanish court on charges of public disorder. (Reuters) (AFP)
The head of the opposition in Comoros is arrested after openly criticising President Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi. (IOL)
Slovakia and the Czech Republic mark the 20th anniversary of the Velvet Revolution which overthrew the communist government of Czechoslovakia. (CNN) (BBC)
A Russian icebreaker with 100 tourists on board is stranded in ice in the Antarctic. (AP) (RIA Novosti)
Israel approves a further 900 settler homes in a settlement in East Jerusalem. (Daily Telegraph) (Xinhua) (Jewish Telegraphic Agency)
Piracy in Somalia:
- A chemical tanker, the Singapore-operated MV Theresa VIII with 28 North Koreans on board, is seized by Somali pirates northwest of the Seychelles. (BBC) (AP)
- The Spanish ship Alakrana and its crew of 36 are released after a US$3.5 million ransom is paid. (Al Jazeera) (Channel News Asia)
An inquiry into a scandal known as "Indonesia's Watergate" says a police case against two anti-corruption officials should be dropped. (Jakarta Post) (BBC) (UPI)
South African human rights activist Kumi Naidoo becomes the executive director of Greenpeace, the first African to head the organisation. (AP)
U.S. President Barack Obama continues his first trip to China and meets with Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. (Reuters) (Xinhua) (Asia Times Online)
The death toll after a ferry collided with an oil barge in the Irrawaddy Delta, off the coast of Burma, rises to 50. (Al Jazeera)
The Original of Laura, an incomplete novel by Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov, is published 32 years after his death despite his wish that its manuscript be burned. (BBC News) (The Independent) (The Cornell Daily Sun)