2009 Review: December

 

RIAN News Service looks back at the main events of the outgoing year; below a month-by-month review of 2009 continues with December:

December 1

 

* The European Union's Lisbon treaty, aimed at streamlining institutions and raising the bloc's global standing, comes into force

 

December 2

 

* U.S. President Barack Obama outlines a new strategy on Afghanistan, saying 30,000 troops would be additionally deployed by next summer

 

December 3

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signs a decree to establish diplomatic relations with Vatican City, and meets with Pope Benedict XVI

* Prime Minister Vladimir Putin fields a wide range of questions from the Russian public during his live TV and radio phone-in, which lasted for four hours

December 5

 

* A fire caused by an indoor fireworks display at the Lame Horse nightclub in the Urals city of Perm leaves 152 people dead

 

 December 7

 

* The 15th UN climate change conference, a result of two-year international talks on a binding treaty to cut the global emission of greenhouse gases, opens in Copenhagen

 

December 8

 

* At least 100 people are killed and more than 100 were injured as a result of coordinated bomb attacks in Iraq's capital of Baghdad

 

December 10

 

* U.S. President Barack Obama accepts the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Norway but acknowledges the controversy over the award, as his country continues to fight two wars

 

* Russia successfully test launches a Topol intercontinental ballistic missile

 

December 14

 

* Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is attacked by a mentally ill man after his party meeting in Milan and taken to hospital

 

December 15

 

* Nauru, the world's smallest island state, recognizes the independence of the former Georgian republic of Abkhazia and South Ossetia

 

December 16

 

* Iran successfully tests an upgraded version of its long range solid-fuel Sejil-2 missile

 

* NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen pays his first official visit to Russia and meets with President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin

 

 * Yegor Gaidar, one of the leading architects of free market reforms in post-Soviet Russia, dies at the age of 53

 

December 17

 

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signs a national climate doctrine

 

December 19

 

* The climate summit in Copenhagen accepts a summary document

 

* Two people are killed in an explosion when a memorial to WWII heroes is demolished in Georgia's second largest city, Kutaisi

 

December 24

* Russia and Georgia agree to reopen a border checkpoint closed since July 2006

 

December 25

 

* Pope Benedict XVI is knocked down at St. Peter's Basilica during the Christmas Eve service

 

December 26

* Olympic gold medalist Evgeni Plushenko wins the Russian Figure Skating Championships to become an eight-time national champion

 

December 28

* Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin officially launches the East-Siberia - Pacific Ocean oil pipeline during his visit to the region