Portal:Current events

• Amnesty International's report on the 2008 South Ossetia war highlights Georgia's role as the aggressor during August hostilities in South Ossetia. It also provides evidence of "notoriously inaccurate" Georgian artillery fire resulting in "scores" of civilian deaths in South Ossetia, of aimed artillery fire at Russian peacekeepers base, and of Russian failure to provide defence to civilians during the conflict. (Amnesty International), (AP via CBS)
• Piracy in Somalia
  • The Indian Navy frigate, the INS Tabar, destroys a pirate ship and forces the abandonment of another pirate vessel off the coast of Somalia. (BBC)
  • A Hong Kong cargo ship carrying 36,000 tons of wheat is hijacked near Yemen coast in Gulf of Aden along with 25 crew members. (CNN)
  • Somali pirates hijack a Thai fishing ship with 16 crew members off the coast of Horn of Africa. (AsiaOne)
• New Zealand and Australian researchers identify a new species of penguin, the Waitaha penguin, which lived in New Zealand until its extinction 500 years ago. (AAP via Sydney Morning Herald), (Science Daily), (BBC)
• John Key is officially sworn in as the Prime Minister of New Zealand by Governor-General Anand Satyanand. (AFP via Google News)
• Claudia Castillo of Spain becomes the first person to have a successful trachea transplant using a tissue-engineered organ. (BBC News)
• NASA successfully tests the first deep-space communication protocol to pave the way for Interplanetary Internet. (Cosmiclog)

• Democrat Mark Begich defeats Republican senior Senator Ted Stevens in the highly contested United States Senate race in Alaska. Begich will be the first Democratic senator representing Alaska in twenty-eight years. (AP)
• Takehiko Yamaguchi, a former Japanese Vice Minister for Health, and his wife are found stabbed to death in Saitama near Tokyo. (BBC)
• Global financial crisis of 2008:
  • Central European stocks drop to a three-week low on expectations of slowing economic growth. Poland forecasts economic growth to drop to 2.3% in 2009 from 5.4% in 2008 and the Warsaw Stock Exchange's WIG 20 index falls 3.5% in two hours. Bulgaria's Sofia Stock Exchange is at a 5-year low. Both Bulgaria and Romania may need International Monetary Fund loans to repay $100 billion of external debt. (Bloomberg)
  • HSBC Holdings announces 500 layoffs in Hong Kong. (CNN-IBN)
  • Pepsi announces 3,000 layoffs in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. (CNN-IBN)
• 2008 Russian financial crisis:
  • Trading remains suspended at the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange for another two days or until the Federal Financial Markets Service instructs otherwise. (Forbes)
• War crimes are reported in the Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a ceasefire is broken and fighting resumes, with at least 100 civilians dead. (INSI)

• Global financial crisis of 2008:
  • Citigroup will lay off 53,000 workers by early 2009 (FOX News) for a total of approximately 75,000. (BBC News)
  • The Japanese economy posts consecutive second-quarter contraction for the first time since 2001, officially putting the country in a recession. (IBNLive.com)
  • On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil futures contracts fall by 3.7% to close at $54.95 per barrel, their lowest level in 22 months. (MarketWatch)
• 2008 Russian financial crisis:
  • The Russian Trading System stock exchange is suspended after its nine indexes fall by more than 5%. It could remain closed for rest of the session.(Forbes)
• MV Sirius Star, a Saudi oil tanker, is captured off Eyl by Somali pirates. This is the largest vessel to-date to be hijacked near the Horn of Africa region. (BBC)

• Jimmie Johnson wins NASCAR's 2008 Sprint Cup Series championship, becoming the second driver to win three in a row. (The New York Times)
• A 7.5 magnitude earthquake strikes off the coast of Indonesia; a tsunami warning is issued, but later lifted. (CNN)
• United States President-elect Barack Obama resigns his Senate seat. (The Washington Post)

• At least 12 miners die in mine explosions in Petrila, Romania. (ABC)
• The G20 meets in Washington, D.C. to discuss responses to the current economic crisis. (BBC News)
• Mission STS-126 commences with the launch of Space Shuttle Endeavour. The spacecraft will deliver equipment required to increase the crew capacity of the International Space Station from three to six members. (NASA)
• Israel shuts down Gaza border crossings after Qassam rockets are launched toward Israel in breach of an armistice. (ABC)
• A fiery bus-truck collision in Burkina Faso kills at least 60 people. (CNN)

• At a summit in Nice, France, the European Union and Russia agree to refrain from deploying missiles or missile defense systems at least before mid-2009, when a pan-European security framework is discussed between Russia, the United States and the EU. (Xinhua)
• General Ann E. Dunwoody becomes the first female four-star general in the history of the United States Army. (BBC News)
• An Italian court convicts 16 and acquits 13 police officers of beating protesters at the 2001 G8 summit in Genoa.(The Telegraph)
• The Eurozone enters its first recession as the combined gross domestic product of the 15 members dropped 0.2% in the second and third quarters of 2008. (Sky News)
• India's Chandrayaan-1 unmanned lunar exploration mission successfully lands the Moon Impact Probe on the south pole of the Moon. (The Times of India)
• The Montecito Tea Fire in California burns 2,500 acres and damages more than 100 homes and the campus of Westmont College. (Los Angeles Times)
• An investigation concludes that wake turbulence is the most likely cause of the November 4, 2008, airplane crash in Mexico City that killed, among others, Secretary of the Interior Juan Camilo Mouriño and José Luis Santiago Vasconcelos. (Reuters)

• Josef Fritzl is charged with murder, rape and enslavement after allegedly sexually abusing and incarcerating his daughter in the cellar of his home, where one of the children she was forced to bear died due to lack of medical attention. (Reuters)
• Three planets orbiting HR 8799 and one planet orbiting Fomalhaut are visually verified by telescopes, the first extrasolar planets whose existence have been confirmed via direct imaging. (CNN)
• 2008 Russian financial crisis:
  • The Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange falls 5% as trade resumes after a one-day limit-down halt, prompting confusing suspension announcements and orders to the contrary from the Federal Financial Markets Service. (The Guardian)
• Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin questions the commitment of the European Union to the construction of the Nord Stream pipeline to establish a natural gas delivery network from his country to Europe. A European Commission spokesman responds, "The EU continues to strongly support the Nord Stream pipeline". (The Wall Street Journal)
• Jason Doucette's app had solved 38.005% of all 19-digit numbers. (Not all 19-digit numbers in general, but the numbers that

need to be checked in order to still maintain 100% accurate results.)