Wikipedia:ITN archives/2009/November

(Archive begins here and is to be continued from here forward).






 * The world's largest passenger ship MS Oasis of the Seas (pictured) sets sail for the first time.
 * Hamid Karzai (pictured) wins a second term as President of Afghanistan after opponent Abdullah Abdullah pulled out citing concerns about the political independence of the Indepentent Election Commission.
 * President of the Czech Republic Václav Klaus (pictured) signs the Treaty of Lisbon after it was upheld by the Constitutional Court, fulfilling the final step in its ratification.
 * The European Space Agency's SMOS and Proba-2 satellites are launched from Plesetsk Cosmodrome, Russia.
 * Claude Lévi-Strauss, the "father of modern anthropology", dies in Paris, aged 100.
 * The source of the Montara oil spill in the Timor Sea near Australia is plugged at the fifth attempt.
 * An Italian court convicts 22 known or suspected CIA agents over the kidnap of Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr (pictured), delivering the first convictions against people involved in the the U.S. extraordinary rendition program.
 * The New York Yankees defeat the Philadelphia Phillies 4–2 and win their 27th World Series (MVP Hideki Matsui pictured).
 * Australia and New Zealand expel Fijian diplomats in retaliation for Fiji's expulsion of their High Commissioners, in a row over travel bans on Fijian officials.
 * The Israeli navy seizes hundreds of tons of arms from the MV Francop off the coast of Cyprus.
 * A gunman opens fire at Fort Hood, a United States Army base in Texas, killing twelve people and injuring 31.
 * Cambodia and Thailand recall their ambassadors from each other over the Cambodian government appointment of deposed Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
 * The Sa'dah insurgency, a civil war in Yemen, spreads into Saudi Arabia.
 * Finland and Sweden give a permit to build the controversial Nord Stream, a natural gas pipeline from Vyborg, Russia, to Greifswald, Germany, in their exclusive economic zones.
 * In baseball, the New York Yankees defeat the Philadelphia Phillies to win their 27th World Series, and the Yomiuri Giants defeat the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters to win their 21st Japan Series.
 * A ruptured water pipe floods the Central Railway Station metro station, the busiest station on the Helsinki metro, possibly closing it from traffic for several months.
 * Russian physicist Vitaly Ginzburg, a Nobel laureate and one of the fathers of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, dies in Moscow, aged 93.
 * At the 4th Forum on China-Africa Cooperation in Sharm el-Sheikh, China's Premier Wen Jiabao pledges US$10 billion in soft loans to 49 African leaders for Sino-African cooperation.
 * El Salvador declares a state of emergency as at least 140 people are killed by floods and mudslides.
 * A German man is sentenced to life imprisonment for fatally stabbing Marwa El-Sherbini (memorial pictured) in a court in Dresden, an attack that caused uproar in the Muslim world.
 * The discovery of Aardonyx, a genus of prosauropod dinosaur, in South Africa is announced.
 * Brazil and Paraguay suffer a blackout caused by failure in the eletric transmission network of the Itaipu Hydroelectric Dam.
 * An illegal gold mine collapses in Dompoase, Ghana killing 18 people.
 * NASA announces that the LCROSS project (satellite pictured) has discovered evidence of water in the Cabeus crater on the Moon.
 * Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao (pictured) defeats Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico, becoming the first boxer in history to win seven world titles in seven different weight divisions.
 * Patriarch Pavle of Serbia, the spiritual leader of Eastern Orthodox Serbs, dies at the age of 95.
 * NASA launches Space Shuttle Atlantis on STS-129 (mission insignia pictured), bringing supplies and the first two ExPRESS Logistics Carriers to the International Space Station.
 * The Original of Laura, a novel by Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov, is published despite his wish that its manuscript be burned.
 * The population of Africa has exceeded one billion people for the first time according to the United Nations Population Fund, and has doubled in the last 27 years.
 * The Supreme Court of Bangladesh upholds the death sentences of five former soldiers convicted of assassinating the country's founder, Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (pictured).
 * Prime Minister of Belgium Herman Van Rompuy (pictured) is chosen as the first permanent President of the European Council.
 * The discovery of ancient crocodile genera, Kaprosuchus and Laganosuchus, is announced.
 * British politician Catherine Ashton is selected as the first High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
 * A United States district court finds the Army Corps of Engineers was negligent in maintaining New Orleans levees that contributed to flooding during Hurricane Katrina.
 * Continued flooding affecting Great Britain and Ireland results in the death of a police officer when a bridge collapses at Workington.
 * Egypt recalls its ambassador to Algeria in a dispute following a qualifying match between the nations for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
 * At least 87 people are killed in a mine explosion in Heilongjiang, People's Republic of China.
 * A research concludes that Homo floresiensis, discovered in 2003, is a distinct species and not a previously known species with dwarfism or microcephaly.
 * Chinese human rights activist Huang Qi, who campaigned for the parents of the children killed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, is convicted of "illegally holding state secrets".
 * An election-related massacre kills 46 people in the Philippines.
 * Leaked contents of a report on the destruction of the Babri Mosque (pictured) cause a row in the Indian parliament.
 * Unidentified hackers steal and publish more than 1,000 private e-mails and 2,000 documents on climate change research, from a server at the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia.
 * More than 300,000 animals are ritually slaughtered in Gadhimai festival in southern Nepal, in the world's largest animal sacrifice.
 * The world's largest mass vaccination against yellow fever begins in West Africa, targeting more than 12 million people.
 * The investment company Dubai World, owned by the Dubai government, asks creditors for a six-month moratorium on its US$59 billion debt, giving indication of problems with the state's finances.
 * The Murphy Report, the result of an investigation into sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin, is published.
 * Wolfgang Schneiderhan (pictured), the Chief of Staff of the German Bundeswehr, resigns over allegations that he withheld information in the aftermath of the Kunduz airstrike.
 * A flash flood on the Red Sea coast of Saudi Arabia during the hajj holidays leaves 77 dead and hundreds missing.
 * Citizens of St Vincent and the Grenadines reject a new constitution which would have replaced Queen Elizabeth II with a president as Head of State.
 * Wolfgang Schneiderhan (pictured), the Chief of Staff of the German Bundeswehr, and Franz Josef Jung, the Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, resign over allegations that they withheld information in the aftermath of the Kunduz airstrike.
 * At least 25 people are killed after a train derails on the Moscow–Saint Petersburg Railway near to Bologoye in Russia.
 * Rwanda (flag pictured) is admitted under the Edinburgh criteria to the Commonwealth of Nations, becoming the second member of the organisation without any historical ties to the United Kingdom.
 * Voters in Switzerland approve in a referendum to ban the construction of minarets in the country.