Portal:Current events/2009 July 16
July 16, 2009 (Thursday)
- A Ugandan study finds circumcising men who already have HIV does not protect their female partners from the virus. (BBC)
- A United Nations Security Council committee imposes further sanctions on North Korea. (BBC) (Xinhua) (Japan Today)
- China's GDP grows 7.9% year by year in the second quarter of 2009, despite the global economic crisis. (Xinhua) (China Daily) (BBC)
- Gholam Reza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and Vice President of Iran, resigns for unknown reasons. (ISNA) (BBC) (Jerusalem Post) (Xinhua)
- Former South Korean President and Nobel Peace Prize winner Kim Dae-jung is in an intensive care unit in a Seoul hospital being treated for pneumonia. (Yonhap) (BBC)
- President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov of Turkmenistan announces the latest stage of a plan to channel drainage water from the country's cotton fields through desert. (BBC)
- Iceland votes by a narrow majority to set in motion an application to join the European Union, after five days of debate. (Al Jazeera) (BBC) (The Independent) (The Telegraph)
- The Holy See acknowledges Oscar Wilde as a "lucid analyst of the modern world", softening its hardline stance against the poet. (The Daily Telegraph) (The Guardian)
- Interim Honduran President Roberto Micheletti says he is willing to step down, only if Jose Manuel Zelaya ceases his claim to the presidency. (CNN) (AFP)
- Omar Bongo's son, Ali-Ben Bongo, is chosen to stand as the ruling party's presidential candidate in Gabon. (BBC)
- Chinese athletes withdraw from the opening ceremony of the World Games but say they will compete. (BBC)
- A magnitude 6.1 earthquake occurs off the coast of Papua New Guinea but causes little damage. (RTÉ)
- The 110-story Sears Tower in Chicago, United States is renamed the Willis Tower. (BBC)
- The black boxes from crashed Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 in Iran are recovered. (Bernama) (Press TV) (Press Association)
- Zac Sunderland, at the age of 17, becomes the youngest person to sail around the world alone. (BBC)
- Madonna's concert in Marseille, France is cancelled after her stage collapses, killing one and injuring nine. (AFP) (BBC) (Boston Globe) (CBC) (Japan Today) (MSNBC) (Pravda) (The Telegraph)