January 1
Slovakia becomes 16th country to adopt the euro.
An Israeli warplane drops a bomb on the Gaza Strip home of Nizar Rayan, one of Hamas' top five decision-makers, killing him and 18 others.
The United States hands over control of the Green Zone and Saddam Hussein's presidential palace to Iraqi authorities.

January 2
Sri Lankan forces capture the Tamil Tigers' de facto capital, Kilinochchi, Sri Lanka.

January 3
After seven days of pummeling Gaza from the air, Israel unsheathes its land forces, raising its war against Gaza's Hamas rulers to a new level.

January 4
Female suicide bomber strikes Shiite pilgrims in Baghdad, killing 38.

January 7
Russia shuts off all its gas supplies to Europe through Ukraine.

January 11
A passenger ferry sinks in a storm off Indonesia's Sulawesi island, killing hundreds aboard.

January 13
After a two-year deployment in Somalia, Ethiopia hands over security duties to a Somali force.

January 14
A French court acquits six doctors and pharmacists in the deaths of at least 114 people who contracted a brain-destroying disease after being treated with tainted human growth hormones.

January 15
-US Airways Captain Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger ditches his airliner in the Hudson River after a flock of birds disables both the plane's engines. All 155 people aboard survive.

January 18

Israeli troops begin to withdraw from Gaza after their government and Hamas militants declare an end to a three-week war.

January 19
-Russia and Ukraine sign a deal that restores natural gas shipments to Ukraine and paves the way for an end to the nearly two-week cutoff of most Russian gas to a freezing Europe.

January 20
Barack Hussein Obama becomes the 44th president - and first black chief executive - of the United States.

January 21
The US Senate confirms Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state.

January 22
A Chinese court sentences two men to death and a dairy boss to life in prison for their roles in producing and selling infant formula tainted with melamine.

January 25
Sri Lankan government captures rebels' last major stronghold of Mullaittivu, Sri Lanka.

January 26
The European Union removes an Iranian opposition group, the People's Mujahedeen Organization of Iran, from its terror list.

January 30
Waterford Crystal workers mount a sit-down protest after bankruptcy officials shut down their world-famous factory in Waterford, Ireland.
Guatemala's government files 3 350 criminal complaints accusing former soldiers, paramilitaries and others of human rights violations against more than 5 000 civilians during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.

January 31
An oil spill from a crashed truck erupts into flames in Molo, Kenya, killing at least 115 people.

February 2
Gunmen abducts American UN worker John Solecki in Quetta, Pakistan, and kill his driver.
Moammar Gadhafi of Libya is elected as leader of the African Union.
Hillary Rodham Clinton is sworn in as US Secretary of State.

February 5
As US Navy ships looks on, Somali pirates speed away with $3.2 million in ransom after releasing an arms-laden Ukrainian freighter - ending a four-month standoff that focused world attention on piracy off Somalia's lawless coast.

February 7
Australia's most destructive wildfires ever kill 173 people.
Bolivia's new constitution takes place.

February 10
US and Russian communication satellites collide in the first-ever crash of its kind in orbit, shooting out a pair of massive debris clouds.
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's centrist Kadima Party narrowly wins the most seats in Israel's 120-member parliament.

February 13
A female suicide bomber targets Shiite pilgrims in Musayyib, killing at least 40.

February 15
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela wins a referendum to eliminate term limits, paving the way for him to run again in 2012.

February 16
France's top judicial body formally recognizes the nation's role in deporting Jews to Nazi death camps during the Holocaust - but effectively ruled out any more reparations for the deportees or their families.

February 17
US President Barack Obama signs a massive $787 billion package to revive the country's economy.
US President Barack Obama approves adding some 17 000 US troops for the flagging war in Afghanistan.

February 19
A jury in Moscow votes unanimously to acquit three men in the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya.

February 20
A suicide bombing at a slain Shiite leader's funeral in northwest Pakistan kills 30 people and wounds more than 60.
Israeli President Shimon Peres chooses Benjamin Netanyahu to form new government.

February 22
A gas explosion in a coal mine in northern China kills at least 74 miners.
Slumdog Millionaire takes the best-picture Academy Award and seven other Oscars, including director for Danny Boyle.

February 25
A Turkish Airlines jetliner crashes near Amsterdam's main airport, but nearly everyone on board - 125 people - survives. The nine dead include two pilots.
A UN-sponsored war crimes court finds three top Sierra Leone rebel leaders guilty of multiple crimes against humanity in the nation's disastrous civil war.

February 26
UN judges in the Hague, Netherlands, acquit former Serbian President Milan Milutinovic of ordering a deadly campaign of terror against Kosovo Albanians. The tribunal convicts five other senior Serbs and gave them prison sentences of between 15 and 22 years.

February 27
US President Barack Obama consigns the Iraq war to history, declaring he will end combat operations within 18 months and open a new era of diplomacy in the Middle East.

March 2
Soldiers assassinate Joao Bernardo "Nino" Vieira, the president of Guinea-Bissau.

March 3
Guinea-Bissau's parliamentary leader Raimundo Pereira is sworn in as the country's new president.

March 8
Suicide bomber strikes police academy in Baghdad, killing at least 30.

March 9
US President Barack Obama lifts George W. Bush-era limits on using federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research.

March 12
Bernard Madoff pleads guilty to pulling off perhaps the biggest swindle in Wall Street history.

March 15
Mauricio Funes wins El Salvador's presidential election.

March 17
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's government survives a no-confidence vote in parliament prompted by contested plans to rejoin Nato's military command.
US journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee are detained by North Korea, while reporting on North Korean refugees living across the border in China.

March 23
Dutch judges convict a Rwandan Hutu of involvement in the slaying of two Tutsi mothers, and at least four of their children, during their country's 1994 genocide and sentence him to 20 years in prison.

March 24
The Czech government collapses after losing a parliamentary no-confidence vote over its handling of the economic crisis.

March 25
A 9 000-ton Greek-owned vessel with 19 crew members is hijacked off the Somali coastline.

March 26
A 23 000-ton Norwegian-owned vessel with a crew of 27 is hijacked off the Somali coastline.
A Soyuz capsule carrying a Russian-American crew and US billionaire space tourist Charles Simonyi blasts off for the international space station from the Baikonur cosmodrome facility in Kazakhstan.
The prime minister of the Czech Republic Mirek Topolanek, formally resigns, two days after his three-party coalition government looses a parliamentary vote of no-confidence.

March 27
A suicide bomber blows up a packed mosque near the Afghan border, killing at least 48 people and wounding scores more.
Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah appoints Prince Nayef, the kingdom's powerful interior minister and his half-brother, as the nation's second deputy prime minister.
US President Barack Obama orders 4 000 more military troops into Afghanistan, vowing to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
A boat packed with migrants seeking a better life in Europe capsizes in the stormy Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Libya, killing at least 21 and leaving 200 missing.

March 29
A stampede at a World Cup qualifying soccer match in the Ivory Coast kills at least 22 people and wounds 132.

March 30
US President Barack Obama asserts unprecedented government control over the auto industry, rejecting turnaround plans from General Motors and Chrysler and raising the prospect of controlled bankruptcy for either ailing auto giant.
Pakistani commandos overpower a group of militants who has seized a police academy, took cadets hostage and killed at least six of them in a dramatic challenge to the civilian government that faces US pressure to defeat Islamic extremists.

April 1
Benjamin Netanyahu takes office as Israel's prime minister.

April 2
Leaders of the world's rich and major developing countries meet at a G-20 economic summit in London.

April 3
Malaysia's new Prime Minister Najib Razak takes office, replacing Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who resigned.

April 4
Nato leaders appoint Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen as the alliance's new secretary-general.

April 5
North Korea fires a rocket over Japan, defying Washington, Tokyo and others who suspect the launch is cover for a test of its long-range missile technology.

April 6
An earthquake in central Italy kills at least 294 people in the country's deadliest quake in nearly three decades.

April 7
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison by a Lima court for death squad killings and kidnappings during his 1990s struggle against Shining Path insurgents.

April 8
Somali pirates hijack the Maersk Alabama, a US-flagged cargo ship with 20 American crew members onboard.

April 9
North Korea's parliament appoints Kim Jong Il to a third term as the nation's leader.

April 10
Abdelaziz Bouteflika wins a third five-year term as president of Algeria.
France's navy storms a French sailboat held by pirates off the Somali coast and frees four hostages. One hostage is killed.

April 11
A 16-nation Asian summit in Bangkok, Thailand, is canceled after demonstrators storm the venue.

April 12
US Navy snipers take out three Somali pirates and rescue their hostage, American sea captain Richard Phillips.

April 13
The UN Security Council condemns North Korea's April 5 rocket launch and expands sanctions against the nation.

April 14
Somali pirates seize four ships with 60 hostages.

April 15
Pirates release the Greek-owned cargo ship Titan hijacked on March 19. Greek authorities say all 24 crewmen are in good health.

April 17
US monitors of North Korea's nuclear program leave the nation after the regime ordered them out.

April 21
The sole surviving Somali pirate from the hostage-taking of an American ship captain arrives in New York to face what are believed to be the first piracy charges in the United States in more than a century.

April 23
A Baghdad suicide bomber hits Iraqis collecting humanitarian aid, killing 31. A suicide booming in Muqdadiyah, north of Baghdad, kills 57.

April 24
Back-to-back suicide bombers strike near a Shiite shrine in Baghdad, killing 71.

April 24
Mexico City closes schools after at least 16 people has died and more than 900 others has fallen ill from what health officials suspect is a new strain of swine flu.

April 26
President Rafael Correa of Ecuador declares re-election victory.
Peru says it has granted asylum to Venezuelan opposition leader Manuel Rosales, who faces corruption allegations back home but claims to be a victim of political persecution by President Hugo Chavez.

April 28
Swine flu crosses new borders with the first confirmed cases in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region, while the number of US cases jump to 68.

April 29
The Geneva-based World Health Organization raises its alert level for the fast-spreading swine flu to its next-to-highest notch.
Twin car bombs ravage a popular shopping area in Baghdad's biggest Shiite district, killing at least 41 people.

April 30
A man drives his car into a crowd of parade spectators and kills five in an attempt to attack the Dutch royal family.

May 3
Ricardo Martinelli wins Panama's presidential election. Patxi Lopez is sworn in as the Basque region's first non-nationalist president.

May 9
Jacob Zuma is sworn in as president of South Africa.

May 11
US commander of the Afghanistan war Gen. David McKiernan is replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
Pope Benedict XVI arrives in Israel on a visit to the Holy Land, hoping to improve relations with Jews and Muslims.
American journalist Roxana Saberi, imprisoned on espionage charges in Iran for four months, is freed.

May 12
Suspected Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk is deported from the United States and arrives in Germany. He faces a warrant accusing him of being accessory to the murder of 29 000 Jews and others at Sobibor, Poland.

May 18
Sri Lanka declares it has crushed the Tamil Tiger rebels, killing their chief, Velupillai Prabhakaran, and ending his three-decade quest for an independent homeland for minority Tamils.

May 20
Indonesia's C-130 Hercules military plane carrying troops and their families crashes in East Java province, killing 99 people.

May 21
A former US Army soldier, convicted of March 2006 raping and killing an Iraqi teen and murdering her family, is sentenced to life after Kentucky jurors couldn't agree unanimously on the death penalty.

May 22
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is sworn in for a second term.

May 24
Space shuttle Atlantis and its seven astronauts return to Earth, ending a 13-day mission to repair and enhance the Hubble Space Telescope.

May 25
North Korea claims it has carried out a powerful underground nuclear test much larger than one conducted in 2006.
A Sikh preacher dies after being wounded in an attack on his temple in Vienna by a group of fundamentalist Sikhs.
Elbegdorj Tsahia, a two-time former prime minister, wins Mongolia's presidential election.

May 26
North Korea launches tests of two more short-range missiles a day after detonating a nuclear bomb underground.
Cyclone Aila lashes eastern India and Bangladesh, destroying thousands of homes and killing at least 115.

May 27
Gunmen detonate a car bomb in Lahore, Pakistan, killing about 30 people and wounding at least 250.

May 31
An Air France jet carrying 228 people from Rio de Janeiro to Paris loses contact with air traffic controllers over the Atlantic Ocean. June 1
US President Barack Obama pushes General Motors Corp. into bankruptcy and says the federal government will act as "reluctant shareholder" when it assumes a 60 percent ownership of the smaller carmaker that emerges.

June 2
Brazilian military pilots spot an airplane seat, a fuel slick and pieces of white debris in the mid-Atlantic, where Air France Flight 447 plunged to its doom.

June 3
The Organization of American States clears the way for Cuba's possible return to the group by lifting a 47-year ban on the country.

June 4
US President Barack Obama calls for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims" and says together, they could confront violent extremism across the globe.

June 9
"Billy Elliot," the British musical about a coal miner's son who dreams to dance, wins 10 Tonys.

June 8
North Korea's top court convicts American journalists Laura Ling and Euna Lee, and sentences them to 12 years in prison.
Extreme-right parties gain in European parliamentary elections, including the first seats won by the all-white British National Party.

June 10
An 88-year-old white supremacist opens fire in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., killing a guard.

June 12
Iranians vote on whether to keep President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power for four more years or replace him with a reformist more open to loosening the country's Islamic restrictions.
The UN Security Council punishes North Korea for its second nuclear test, imposing tough new sanctions.

June 15
Gen. Stanley McChrystal takes charge of US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei orders an investigation into allegations of election fraud, offering hope to opposition forces who have waged street clashes to protest the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

June 18
Tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Tehran, Iran, again, joining opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi to mourn demonstrators killed in clashes over Iran's disputed election.

June 19
Iran's supreme leader says that the country's disputed presidential vote has not been rigged, warning protesters of a crackdown if they continue demonstrations demanding a new election.
New York Times reporter David S. Rohde, and Afghan reporter Tahir Ludin, escape from militant captors after more than seven months in captivity in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

June 20
Iran state media reports at least 10 people were killed in the fiercest, post-election clashes yet. A truck bombing against a Shiite mosque in Taza, Iraq, kills 72 people and wounds 163.

June 22
Iran's highest electoral authority, the Guardian Council, acknowledges that there were voting irregularities in the June 12 election, but insists the problems do not affect the vote's outcome.
A suicide car bomber attacks a convoy carrying Yunus Bek Yevkurov, the president of the troubled Russian province of Ingushetia, critically wounding him and killing two bodyguards.
Collision of two subway trains in Washington D.C. kills nine people and injures scores of others.

June 25
Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop," dies in Los Angeles at age 50.

June 28
Soldiers oust Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected president of Honduras. Congressional leader Roberto Micheletti is sworn in to serve until January 27 when Zelaya's term ends.

June 29
Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez and her husband, former President Nestor Kirchner, suffer a stunning setback in an election seen as a referendum on their political dynasty. They lose control of both houses of Congress. Bernard Madoff is sentenced to 150 years in prison for multibillion-dollar fraud scheme.
US combat troops withdraw from Iraqi cities, the first major step toward withdrawing all American forces from the country by December 31, 2011.

June 30
A Yemeni jet with 153 people on board crashes into the Indian Ocean as it tried to land on the island nation of Comoros. A 12-year-old girl is the sole survivor. -Iraqi forces assume control for security in urban areas.

June 31
American soldier Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, goes missing from his base in eastern Afghanistan, and is later confirmed to have been captured.

July 1
A Russian-born German man fatally stabs a pregnant Egyptian woman who is to testify against him in a Dresden, Germany court.

July 2
Thousands of US Marines pour into Taliban-controlled villages in southern Afghanistan in the first major operation under President Barack Obama's strategy to stabilize the country.
North Korea test-fires two short-range missiles.
The 35-nation International Atomic Energy Agency choses Japan's Yukiya Amano as its next head.

July 3
German prosecutors say doctors have determined that 89-year-old John Demjanjuk is fit to stand trial on charges of being accessory to murder at the Sobibor Nazi death camp.

July 5
Riots and street battles kill at least 184 people in China's western Xinjiang province and injure hundreds in the deadliest ethnic unrest to hit the region in decades.

July 6
US President Barack Obama opens a two-day Moscow summit, the first of its kind since the early part of the George W. Bush presidency.

July 7
Britain unveils a Hyde Park memorial to mark the 4th anniversary of London transit system bombings.
Pope Benedict XVI calls for a new world financial order guided by ethics, dignity and the search for the common good in the third encyclical of his pontificate.

July 9
The Dutch government turns over dozens of antiquities stolen from Iraq to Baghdad's ambassador.
Two suicide bombers kill at least 34 people and injure 70 in an attack on the home of an anti-terrorism officer in northern Iraq.
A massive bomb blast in central Afghanistan kills 25 people including primary school students.

July 12
Rebels in Nigeria set fire to an oil depot and loading tankers in Lagos, killing five people in the group's first attack outside the Delta region.

July 14
Former Liberian President Charles Taylor takes the stand in his own defense at his war crimes trial in the Hague. He tells judges the case against him is built on lies and misinformation.
The European Parliament elects Jerzy Buzek as its president, making the ex-Polish premier and pro-democracy activist the first easterner from a former Communist country to head a major EU institution.

July 15
A Russian-made jetliner carrying 168 people crashes after taking off from Tehran, Iran, killing everyone aboard.

July 17
Explosions rip through two luxury hotels in Jakarta, Indonesia, killing eight and wounding at least 50 more.

July 19
Israel rejects a US demand to suspend a planned housing project in east Jerusalem.

July 23
Mauritania's coup leader Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz wins presidential elections, final results show.

July 27
The presidents of Taiwan and China exchange direct messages for the first time since the two sides split 60 years ago.

July 30
Mohammed Yusuf, the leader of the Islamist sect blamed for days of violence in northern Nigeria, has "died in police custody," officials announce.

July 31
Three American tourists are arrested after entering Irania

August 1
Iran state TV confirms that it has detained three Americans who crossed the border from northern Iraq,

August 3
Iran's supreme leader formally endorses Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for a second term as president. -A new strain of the virus that causes AIDS has been discovered in a woman from Cameroon, the US journal, Nature Medicine, reports.

August 4
Taliban militants unleash a wave of rockets at Kabul's international airport and government buildings less than three weeks before Afghanistan's presidential election.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Il pardons two American journalists and orders their release during the visit of former US President Bill Clinton.
The Arctic Sea, which left Finland on July 21 with 15 Russian crew members and a cargo of timber, fails to arrive in Algeria. Its alleged hijacking, subsequent disappearance and rescue by a Russian naval ship prompts wide speculation about the ship's cargo and its destination.

August 5
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is sworn in for a second term as Iran's president.
Pakistan's Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud is killed in a US missile strike.

August 8
Sonia Sotomayor becomes the US Supreme Court's newest justice. She is the first Hispanic and the third woman in the court's 220-year history.
A small plane collides with a sightseeing helicopter over the Hudson River in New York City, killing nine people aboad, including five Italian tourists.

August 8-9
Typhoon Morakot slams Taiwan, leaving more than 670 people either dead or missing. The typhoon also kills 22 people in the Philippines and eight in China.

August 9
Iraqi authorities arrest a British contractor over the shooting deaths of two co-workers in Baghdad's protected Green Zone.
Sixteen sailors, including 10 Italians, whose tug was seized by Somali pirates four months ago, are free after the pirates abandon the ship, Italian authorities say.

August 10
A double truck bombing tears through the village of a small Shiite ethnic minority near Mosul, Iraq, killing at least 28 people and wounding 138.

August 11
A Myanmar court convicts Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi of violating her house arrest by allowing an uninvited American to stay at her home.

August 12
An appeals court commutes the death sentences for four men convicted of killing American diplomat John Granville and his Sudanese driver on January 1, 2008, after the driver's family decides to pardon the murderers.

August 15
A suicide car bomber strikes near the front gate of Nato headquarters in Kabul, killing seven people and wounding nearly 100 less than a week before Afghanistan's landmark presidential election.

August 16
Myanmar's ruling generals agree to hand to a visiting US senator an American imprisoned for swimming to the home of Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

August 17
An accident during repair work at Russia's largest hydroelectric plant kills at least 69 workers. -A suicide bomber rams a truck into a police station in the Russian region of Ingushetia, killing at least 20 police and wounding 130 others. -Former Zambian President Frederick Chiluba is cleared of corruption charges after a six-year trial.

August 19
Six American troops are killed in Afghanistan, as militants kill six election workers on the eve of the presidential election.

August 20
Scotland frees the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds, despite American pleas to show no mercy for the man responsible for the 1988 attack that killed 270 people. -Afghans vote for president for the second time ever, but Taliban threats scare voters and dampen turnout in the militant south.

August 23
Wildfires in Greece reach Athens suburbs, causing thousands to flee.

August 25
South Korea's first rocket blasts off into space just months after its rival North Korea drew international ire for its own launch.

August 26
A giant wildfire erupts north of Los Angeles and goes on to destroy more than five dozen homes, kill two firefighters and force thousands of people from their homes.

August 30
Japanese voters oust the country's conservatives after more than a half century of rule and put the untested Democratic Party of Japan in control.
Space shuttle Discovery docks at the international space station, delivering a full load of gear and science experiments.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is indicted on corruption charges.

September 1
Pakistani government forces destroy four militant bases and kill 40 insurgents in a new offensive near Pakistan's Khyber Pass, the main route for supplies to US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.

September 2
A Taliban suicide bomber attacks officials leaving a mosque east of Afghanistan's capital, killing the country's deputy intelligence chief and 23 other people.
A magnitude-7.0 earthquake rocks Indonesia, killing at least 64 people and injuring dozens.
Gunmen break into a drug rehabilitation center in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, and shoot 17 dead in the country's relentless drug war.

September 3
Gabon's government declares the late dictator Omar Bongo's son, Ali Bongo, the winner of presidential elections, triggering the worst violence in years in the nation.
A judge sentences a Canadian man who confessed to taking part in a terrorist plot to bomb buildings in Ontario to 14 years, but grants him seven years credit for time already served.

September 4
A German army colonel calls in a US airstrike on a pair of hijacked tanker trucks in northern Afghanistan. The bombing appears to have killed dozens of Afghan civilians.

September 7
The rare Arakan forest turtle, once though to be extinct, has been rediscovered in a remote forest in Myanmar, Texas researcher Steven Platt and staff fom the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society say.
Three British Muslims are convicted of plotting to murder thousands by downing at least seven airliners bound for the US and Canada in what was intended as the largest terrorist attack since September 11.
British plotters were likely just days away from mounting their suicide attacks when police rounded up 25 people in August 2006.
Sudanese Journalist Lubna Hussein is convicted of public indecency for wearing trousers, but is spared a sentence of flogging.

September 9
The UN-backed commission charged with investigating Afghanistan's election says it has found "clear and convincing evidence of fraud" and orders a recount of questionable polling stations.
A wooden boat capsizes in Sierra Leone, leaving at least 30 dead, and more than 200 people missing.

September 13
The Pentagon has begun putting into place a new program under which hundreds of prisoners being held by the military in Afghanistan will be given the right to challenge their detentions, a defense official says.

September 15
The Iraqi reporter who threw his shoes at former US President George W Bush in protest is freed after nine months in prison.

September 17
An 18-year-old man armed with an ax, knives and Molotov cocktails attacks his high school in Ansbach, Germany, injuring nine students and a teacher before being shot and arrested.

September 21
Deposed President Manuel Zelaya of Honduras defies threats of arrest and returns to his country, three months after he was forced into exile at gunpoint.

September 22
Bulgaria's ambassador to France, Irina Bokova, becomes the first woman to lead the UN's agency for culture and education.

September 24
The heads of the Group of 20 nations meet in Pittsburgh for a two-day "checkup" summit aimed at making sure a fledgling global recovery remains on track.
Najibullah Zazi, an Afghan immigrant who received explosives training from al-Qaeda, is indicted in New York on charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction.

September 25
Iran has revealed the existence of a secret uranium-enrichment plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency says.

September 26
Film director Roman Polanski is arrested by Swiss police as he arrives in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award from a film festival. He faces possible extradition to the United States for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
Typhoon Ketsana kills 517 people across Southeast Asia.

September 27
German Chancellor Angela Merkel wins a second term, along with the center-right majority that eluded her four years ago nudging Europe's biggest economic power to the right.

September 28
Iran tests its most advanced missiles, raising more international concern and stronger pressure to quickly come clean on the newly revealed nuclear site Tehran is secretly constructing.

September 29
An earthquake and tsunami kill 178 people in the Samoas and Tonga.

September 30
A powerful earthquake rocks western Indonesia, killing 1 115 people.

October 2
Rio de Janeiro is announced as host of the 2016 Olympics.

October 3
Eight US soldiers are killed when their outpost in Kamdesh, Nuristan, is attacked by as many as 300 militants.

October 5
Americans Elizabeth H. Blackburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak win the 2009 Nobel Prize in medicine.
A suicide bomber blows himself up in the lobby of the UN food agency in Islamabad, killing three people.

October 6
Americans Charles K. Kao, Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith win the Nobel Prize in physics.
George Papandreou is sworn in as Greece's new Socialist prime minister.

October 7
A top Italian court overturns a law granting Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi immunity from prosecution, allowing trials for corruption and tax fraud to resume.
Americans Venkatraman Ramakrishnan and Thomas Steitz and Israeli Ada Yonath win the Nobel Prize in chemistry.
Egypt's antiquities department announces it has severed its ties with France's Louvre museum because it has refused to return what are described as stolen artifacts.

October 8
Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller wins the Nobel Prize in literature. A powerful car bomb explodes outside the Indian Embassy in Kabul, killing at least 17 people.

October 9
US President Barack Obama wins the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. Belgian Jacques Rogge wins re-election as president of the International Olympic Committee for a final four-year term.
A surveillance plane assigned to the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti crashes into a mountain, killing all 11 peacekeepers on board.

October 12
Americans Elinor Ostrom and Oliver Williamson win the Nobel economics prize.

October 13
The UN Security Council votes unanimously to extend the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti for a year. China and Russia sign a framework agreement that could see a steady flow of natural gas to energy-hungry China from its resource-rich neighbor.

October 14
The Unification Church holds the largest mass wedding in a decade, with some 40 000 people participating in dozens of cities around the world.

October 15
Bosnia and Lebanon win seats on the UN Security Council. Brazil, Nigeria and Gabon also win easy election.

October 16
Ali Bongo , the son of Gabon's longtime dictator, is sworn in as president following disputed elections. The UN Human Rights Council votes to endorse a Gaza war crimes report that calls on Israel and Hamas to carry out credible investigations into alleged abuses.

October 18
A suicide bomber kills five senior commanders of the powerful Revolutionary Guard and at least 37 others near the Pakistani border in the heartland of a potentially escalating Sunni insurgency.
Botswana's governing party, which has been in power for more than four decades, once again sweeps parliamentary elections, the country's independent electoral commission announces.

October 20
Afghanistan's election commission orders a November 7 runoff in the disputed presidential poll after a fraud investigation drops incumbent Hamid Karzai's votes below 50 percent of the total. Karzai accepts the finding and agrees to a second round vote.

October 22
Mortars fired by Islamic militants slam into Somalia's airport as the president is boarding a plane, sparking battles that killed at least 24 people and wounded 60.
Gunmen kidnap Gauthier Lefevre, a French staff member working for the International Committee of the Red Cross, in Sudan's western Darfur region.
Ethiopia says it needs emergency food aid for 6.2 million people, an appeal that comes 25 years after a devastating famine compounded by communist policies killed 1 million people.

October 25
A pair of suicide car bombings devastate the heart of Iraq's capital, killing 155 people including 24 children.

October 26
Hwang Woo-suk, a South Korean stem cell scientist once hailed as a hero for creating the world's first cloned dog, is convicted on criminal charges related to faked research, but avoids jail.
President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia is re-elected for a fifth term.

October 27
Eight American troops are killed in two separate bomb attacks in southern Afghanistan, making October the deadliest month of the war for US forces since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban.
An appeals court upholds the conviction of British lawyer David Mills for accepting a bribe to lie in court to protect Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi.

October 28
Taliban militants storm a guest house used by UN staff in the heart of the Afghan capital, killing 11 people including three militants.
A car bomb tears through a crowded market in northwestern Pakistan, killing 57 people.
Angela Merkel is sworn in for a second term as German chancellor.

October 29
Deposed President Manuel Zelaya and his opponents agree to a US-brokered deal to end the power crisis that has paralyzed the country since a coup four months ago.

October 31
Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis is removed from office by the Haitian Senate in a move that could imperil efforts to attract foreign investment to the storm-wracked, impoverished country.

November 2
A suicide bomber kills 30 people outside a bank near Pakistan's capital.
Afghanistan's election commission proclaims President Hamid Karzai the victor of the country's tumultuous ballot, canceling a planned runoff and ending a political crisis two and a half months after a fraud-marred first round.

November 5
A US Army psychiatrist opens fire at the Fort Hood Army post in Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 43 others in the worst mass killing on a US military base.

November 9
Germany celebrates the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

November 12
Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist in the Fort Hood massacre, is charged with 13 counts of premeditated murder in a US military court.

November 13
US Attorney General Eric Holder announces a decision to bring professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to trial at a lower Manhattan courthouse.

November 15
Kosovo's first independent elections end peacefully, with the prime minister claiming his party has won convincingly.

November 16
Space shuttle Atlantis rockets into orbit from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with six astronauts and a full load of spare parts for the International Space Station.

November 17
Israel moves to approve new construction in east Jerusalem, drawing harsh US and Palestinian criticism. Iran sentences five to death in post election turmoil.

November 18
Queen Elizabeth's speech to parliament signals start of election season.

November 19
Little known compromise figures get top European Union jobs of president and foreign policy chief.
President Hamid KarzaI pledges to get tough on corruption and strengthen security in Afghanistan as he starts second five-year term.

November 20
Scientists in Geneva restart world's largest atom smasher after a year of repairs.

November 21
Pope Benedict XVI assures archbishop of Canterbury he is committed to seeking closer relations between Roman Catholics and Anglicans.

November 23
UN weather agency says greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere reached record levels in 2008.

November 24
Barack Obama plays host at first state dinner of his presidency to visiting Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an event marred by two gatecrashers.

November 26
India marks first anniversary of terrorist attacks that left 166 dead in Mumbai in a three-day assault on luxury hotels, a Jewish center and other sites.

November 27
Professional golfer Tiger Woods crashes his car in early morning hours outside his Florida mansion.
Dubai World, a government owned company in the United Arab Emirates, calls for delay in repaying billions of dollars in debt, rattling global financial markets.

November 29
Iran vows to expand uranium enrichment sites despite ca ampaign by the West to get it to stop producing fissile material that could be used in nuclear weapons.

December 1
President Barack Obama asks European Nato allies to contribute up to 10 000 new troops to forces in Afghanistan. Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's memoir "Going Rogue" his 1 million sales mark in US

December 2
European allies react coolly to President Barack Obama's new Afghan strategy with small countries providing small reinforcements but big countries holding back.

December 3
Pope Benedict XVI and visiting Russian President Dmitri Medvedev agree to upgrade Vatican-Kremlin ties to full diplomatic relations.

December 4
President Barack Obama decides to delay his appearance for climate talks in Copenhagen to be there when other world leaders attend and try to reach agreement on reducing global warming.

December 5
Nightclub fire in Russian city of Perm kills 119.
A jury in Italy convicts American student Amanda Knox and her former Italian boyfriend of murdering Knox's British roommate and sentences them to long prison terms.

December 7
Largest and most important climate talks in history open in Copenhagen with organizers warning diplomats from 192 countries that this could be the last chance for a deal to protect the planet from global warming.
Under US pressure, Iraqi lawmakers reach agreement on seat distribution for parliamentary elections set for March.

December 8
The US general in charge of the war in Afghanistan says he expects to know by late 2010 whether the new troop buildup is reversing Taliban momentum.
A wave of coordinated bomb attacks that targeted high profile symbols of Iraqi authority killed at least 127 people.

December 9
The British government announces a one-time tax on bankers' bonuses as it lays out plans for the country's ravaged economy ahead of a looming general election.
Iran claims that a newly-built UN station to detect nuclear explosions was built near its border to give the West a post to spy on the country.

December 10
President Barack Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize with humble acknowledgment of his scant accomplishments and a robust defense of the US at war.
Pakistan police say five young American Muslims arrested in Pakistan sought training from an al-Qaidalinked group.

December 12
A cargo plane flying from North Korea and carrying tons of weapons is seized by Thai authorities who detained the plane's crew members.

December 13
Attacker hurls statuette at Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, striking the leader in the face and leaving the stunned 73-year-old with a bloodied mouth.

December 14
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says US effort to engage Iran has fallen short and new sanctions are needed to press Tehran to provide more information about its suspect nuclear program.

December 15
World leaders begin arriving in Copenhagen, kicking UN climate talks into high gear in quest to deliver a deal to curb emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

December 16
Iran test fires a missile capable of hitting Israel and parts of Europe, another show of strength aimed at preventing any military strike on its nuclear facilities amid standoff with the West.
Police fire pepper spray and beat protesters with batons outside the UN climate conference as disputes inside leave major issues unresolved just days before world leaders hope to sign a historic agreement to fight global warming.

- SAPA