Portal:Current events/2009 December 31

December 31, 2009 (Thursday)

A High Court in Malaysia rules that the country's Christians have a constitutional right to use the word Allah in reference to God, declaring the government's ban on the use of Allah by non-Muslims as unconstitutional. (BBC News)
Former Catholic Primate of All Ireland Cardinal Cahal Daly, "the hierarchy's foremost theologian and its most trenchant critic of politically-inspired violence", dies in Belfast aged 92. (RTÉ) (The Daily Telegraph) (The Irish Times) (Reuters)
Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade issues an apology to "humiliated" Christians for comparing an "idolatrous" statue to Jesus Christ. (BBC) (Daily Nation)
Two French journalists and their translator are kidnapped in Kapisa Province, Afghanistan. (CNN) (Sky News) (Radio Netherlands Worldwide)
The Althing (Icelandic parliament) approves the payment of €3.8 billion to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands as deposit insurance for the collapsed Icesave savings scheme. (BBC News)
The Government of Serbia decides to sue Croatia for genocide before the International Court of Justice. (B92)
The University of Cambridge successfully acquires a collection of Siegfried Sassoon's personal papers for £1.25 million, following a six-month fundraising campaign. (BBC) (Reuters)
At least six people are killed by a gunman at a shopping centre in Espoo, near Helsinki. (YLE) (BBC) (The Times) (Reuters)
Lithuania shuts the Baltic region's one and only nuclear power station in Visaginas. The Lithuanian nuclear power station provides 70% of the nation's energy and was traded for membership to the European Union. (BBC) (The Daily Telegraph)
Les Choristes by Impressionist artist Edgar Degas mysteriously disappears from Marseilles's Cantini Museum. (BBC) (France 24) (Boston Globe) (Reuters)
Van Morrison tells RTÉ News at One that a baby his own website claimed he has fathered does not exist and that he has never met the alleged mother. (RTÉ) (The Times) (ABC News) (The Guardian) (Statement)
Patrick Stewart, the actor who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Professor X in X-Men, is knighted by Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. (CNN) (News10) (The Guardian)
Both a blue moon and a lunar eclipse occur. (CNN) (ABC News) (Space) (Wikinews) (RTÉ)

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