Portal:Current events/2010 September 9
< Portal:Current events
September 9, 2010 (Thursday)
Armed conflicts and incidents
- Islamist militant group Boko Haram raid a prison in Bauchi, northern Nigeria, freeing 721 inmates. (Al Jazeera) (Times of India) (AllAfrica.com)
- At least 16 people are killed and 98 injured in an apparent suicide bombing in the Russian Caucasus city of Vladikavkaz. (AFP via Sydney Morning Herald), (RIA Novosti), (RIA Novosti)
- Battle of Mogadishu (2010)
- A bomb explodes at Mogadishu Airport in Somalia. (Reuters)
- United States Marines board and seize control of a German-owned vessel, Magellan Star, previously captured by pirates off the coast of Somalia. (CNN)
Arts and culture
- Archaeologists date the mound of Moot Hill in Scone Palace where medieval Kings of Scotland including Robert the Bruce were crowned back to at least 1,000 years ago. (The Scotsman)
Business and economy
- The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission rejects a $A13 billion bid by the National Australia Bank for AXA Asia Pacific. (Sydney Morning Herald)
Disasters
- Tropical Storm Meranti is forecast to bring heavy rains to Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi and Hainan provinces in the People's Republic of China, as well as in Taiwan. (Xinhua)
- The 2010 San Bruno, California fire begins with a massive explosion in a natural gas line destroying dozens of houses, killing at least 6 people, and continues burning in San Bruno, California near the US city of San Francisco. (Marketwatch), (San Francisco Chronicle), (Silicon Valley Mercury News)
International relations
- Iran
- An Iranian diplomat at the United Nations states that United States citizen Sarah Shourd will be released "very soon". (AFP via Google News)
- The National Council of Resistance of Iran claims that Iran is building a secret uranium enrichment facility in Abyek. (Haaretz)
- "Ground zero" mosque and cultural centre controversy
- Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the President of Indonesia, and Asif Ali Zardari, the President of Pakistan, call on President of the United States, Barack Obama, to stop International Burn a Koran Day being organised by the Dove World Outreach Center. (The Telegraph)
- Barack Obama describes the event as "a clear recruitment bonanza for al-Qaida" and warns that it will endanger US soldiers. (MSNBC)
- US businessman Donald Trump offers to buy out one of the major investors in the Park51 site in New York City where a Muslim group wanted to build a 13-story Islamic centre and mosque. (AP via Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
- Pastor Terry Jones of the Dove World Outreach Center agrees to call off the Koran burning in return for the Park51 community center being relocated, though those associated with Park51 have stated no such agreement exists. (BBC), (MSNBC)
- Pastor Terry Jones later reassesses his position after he claimed that he received incorrect information that the Park51 community center would be relocated. (CNN), (The Wall Street Journal)
Law and crime
- Wang Huayuan, a top anti-corruption official in China's Shandong province, is sentenced to death for accepting $1 million in bribes. (AP via Google News)
- Investigators in the Philippines admit that Manila Police District officers may have shot dead some of the tourists killed in the Manila hostage crisis in August. (AFP via Google News)
- US District Court Judge Virginia A. Phillips rules that the United States military's don't ask, don't tell policy violates the First Amendment rights of gay men and lesbians. (Los Angeles Times)
- A woman kills two people and injures another at a shooting incident at a Kraft baking plant in the United States city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (MSNBC)
Politics
- Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, pays tribute to freedom of speech at a ceremony to honour Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist at the centre of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. (Reuters)
- The President of the United States Barack Obama selects Austan Goolsbee to replace Christina Romer as the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. (Reuters)