Wikipedia:ITN archives/2009/October

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




 * An international fact-finding mission headed by Swiss diplomat Heidi Tagliavini concludes that Georgia started the 2008 South Ossetia war.
 * A 7.6 Mw earthquake (location map pictured) on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, kills at least 450 people.
 * The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (location pictured) takes effect, replacing the Law Lords as the final court of appeal in the country.
 * The Soyuz TMA-16 is launched from Baikonur Cosmodrome to the International Space Station, taking a space tourist, Guy Laliberté, founder and CEO of Cirque du Soleil.
 * Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is chosen by the International Olympic Committee as the host city for the 2016 Summer Olympics.
 * Former President of Peru Alberto Fujimori is sentenced to six years imprisonment for bribery and phone tapping.
 * The Twenty-eighth Amendment of the Constitution of Ireland is passed, enabling the country to ratify the Treaty of Lisbon.
 * Floods and mudslides in Messina and across northeastern Sicily, Italy, kill at least 21 people in the country's deadliest landslide disaster since 1998.
 * Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Uprising, dies in Poland aged 90.
 * The 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine is awarded to Elizabeth Blackburn (pictured), Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak, for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase.
 * The Panhellenic Socialist Movement led by George Papandreou wins the 2009 Greek legislative elections.
 * Former Japanese Minister of Finance Shōichi Nakagawa is found dead in his Tokyo apartment aged 56.
 * Charles K. Kao, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith win the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physics for the groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication and for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor.
 * Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall wins the 2009 Man Booker Prize.
 * The discovery of Phoebe ring (artist's impression pictured) of Saturn, hundreds of times larger than the planet's radius, is announced.
 * Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas A. Steitz and Ada E. Yonath win the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work on the structure and function of the ribosome.
 * Four former Chilean Army officers are convicted of the 1991 murder of Colonel Gerardo Huber over an illegal arms deal with Croatia.
 * The Red Book by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung is published and displayed in public for the first time.
 * Romanian-born German novelist Herta Müller (pictured) wins the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature.
 * U.S. President Barack Obama wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.
 * NASA's LCROS satellite (pictured) successfully impacts the Moon, after launching a Centaur booster rocket at the Cabeus crater, in order to search for water.
 * The foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey sign an accord intended to normalise their relations.
 * Father Damien (pictured) is canonized by Pope Benedict XVI.
 * The Pakistani Special Service Group frees 40 hostages held after militants attacked the Army's General Headquarters.
 * The Irish National Liberation Army announces an end to its armed struggle.
 * Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson win the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics.
 * Militants simultaneously attack three police facilities in Lahore, Pakistan, killing at least 26 people.
 * The United Nations Human Rights Council endorses the Goldstone report on the Gaza War.
 * Five men are found guilty of plotting a terrorist attack in Sydney, in one of Australia's longest trials.
 * The Pakistan Army begins an operation against the Taliban in South Waziristan, Pakistan.
 * President Ian Khama leads the Democratic Party to victory in a general election in Botswana.
 * The Neues Museum in Berlin, Germany, reopens after 70 years.
 * Under the One Laptop per Child scheme, Uruguay becomes the first country to deliver a free laptop to each child of primary school age.
 * Jenson Button and Brawn GP win the 2009 Formula One World Championships.
 * A suicide bombing in the Iranian town of Pishin kills 48 people, including several Revolutionary Guards commanders.
 * Litokwa Tomeing loses a vote of no confidence in the Legislature of the Marshall Islands and is temporarily replaced as President by Ruben Zackhras.
 * The Russian civil rights society Memorial wins the 2009 Sakharov Prize.
 * The discovery of Fruitadens, the smallest known ornithischian dinosaur genus, is announced.
 * The Church of Sweden (Uppsala Cathedral pictured) decides to conduct same-sex marriages, becoming the first major church to do so.
 * The Microsoft operating system Windows 7 goes on retail sale worldwide.
 * The Economic Community of West African States suspends Niger from membership over its ongoing constitutional crisis.
 * In the single largest U.S. strike against a Mexican drug cartel in history, U.S. federal authorities (FBI director Robert Mueller pictured) announce the arrest of more than 300 people.
 * The National Movement for the Development of Society wins a majority of seats in the National Assembly of Niger after a controversial election.
 * At least 50 people are killed and 30 others are injured after two trains collide near Cairo, Egypt.
 * Bomb blasts kill at least 147 people and injure more than 700 others in central Baghdad, Iraq.
 * Governor of Puerto Rico Luis Fortuño declares a state of emergency as the Cataño oil refinery fire continues to burn out of control.
 * The bodies of ten footballers kidnapped from Colombia are discovered scattered across Táchira, Venezuela.
 * Zine El Abidine Ben Ali (pictured) wins a fifth term as President of Tunisia.
 * The Church of Scientology is convicted of organized fraud in France.
 * A bomb blast kills at least 95 people and injures more than 200 others in Peshawar, Pakistan.
 * Russian-Israeli businessman Arcadi Gaydamak (pictured) and 35 others are convicted of participating in a scandal involving the illegal sale of arms to Angola.
 * Jurelang Zedkaia is elected President of the Marshall Islands.
 * NASA's Ares I-X, the first test flight in the Ares I program, is launched successfully from the Kennedy Space Center.
 * Prime Minister of Mongolia Sanjaagiin Bayar resigns for health reasons.
 * The African Union, the European Union and the United States impose sanctions on Guinea's military junta leader Moussa Dadis Camara and 41 members of the junta.
 * Désiré Munyaneza is sentenced to life imprisonment for crimes against humanity and war crimes for his role in the Rwandan Genocide, at his trial in Canada.
 * The Internet regulator ICANN approves plans to allow Unicode top-level domains for the first time.