| | - The North American blizzard of 2009 produces record snowfall, causing power outages, deaths, and impacting retail sales. (The Weather Channel) (BBC)
- Iraq deploys troops on its border with Iran to monitor a disputed oil well seized by Iranian troops, while an arbitration commission is established to resolve the dispute. (Al Jazeera) (AP) (Press TV)
- NASA releases the first ever photo of liquid outside of Earth, in the form of sunlight reflecting on a lake on Saturn's largest moon, Titan. (CNN)
- Serbians, Macedonians, and Montenegrins are able to travel to continental Europe without a visa from this day on. (The Independent)
- Pope Benedict XVI declares two of his predecessors, John Paul II and Pius XII to be Venerable, the second step toward sainthood. (BBC) (The New York Times) (Deutsche Welle)
- A 6.4 Mw earthquake strikes Taiwan collapsing one building. (Central News Agency) (Reuters)
- Madagascar's President Andry Rajoelina dismisses his Prime Minister, Eugène Mangalaza, whom he appointed in October. (Al Jazeera)
- The Fatah movement in the West Bank rejects local mediation between itself and Hamas. (Xinhua)
- Iran's military prosecutor charges three officials with killing three people at a detention centre used to house post-election protesters. (AFP) (BBC)
- A faction from the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta says it carried out an attack on an oil pipeline, breaking a ceasefire agreed upon with the Nigerian government. (Times of Nigeria) (BBC) (Xinhua)
- The Cambodian government expels 22 Chinese Muslim Uyghurs who arrived in the country back to China, despite criticism from the UN. (Press TV) (BBC) (The Straits Times)
- Freezing conditions cause electrical faults in the Channel Tunnel between Great Britain and France, isolating 2,000 passengers in five trains. The situation is coupled with disruptions at London Heathrow Airport and traffic delays due to snowy conditions in the south-east of England. (BBC) (Sky News) (The Financial Times)
- Police recruit sniffer dogs and detectives in their hunt for the Arbeit macht frei sign missing from Auschwitz as appeals for its return are made by Israel, Poland and the European Union. (BBC) (The Times)
- Scientists announced the discovery of GJ 1214 b, an ocean planet orbiting a star in the Ophiuchus constellation. (Nature)
- In association football, FC Barcelona sets a new record by winning all 6 possible competitions (The Sextuple) in one year. (The Guardian)
| | | - The Catalan Parliament votes to ban bull fighting in the Spanish region. (The Times)
- Russian television news channels air repeated coverage of a UFO, shaped like a pyramid and similar to an Imperial Cruiser from Star Wars. (The Daily Telegraph) (Sky News)
- The Vatican dismisses Zambia's controversial Roman Catholic Church archbishop Emmanuel Milingo. (African Press Agency) (ZBC) (BBC)
- A Paris court rules that Google is infringing copyright, sentencing it to pay 300,000 euros in damages and interest to French publisher Editions de la Martinière, and 10,000 euros a day until it removes extracts of the books from its database. (BBC) (PC World)
- The BBC apologises for offence caused when it used the headline: "Should homosexuals face execution?" (The Age) (The New Zealand Herald) (The Daily Telegraph)
- Irish priest Father Seán Sheehy withdraws from work in his parish of Castlegregory over a controversy which followed his shaking the hand of a convicted sex offender in court days earlier. Bishop of Kerry William Murphy disassociates himself from Sheehy and his actions. (RTÉ) (BBC) (Irish Examiner)
- General Motors announces that it will begin shutting down operations at the Swedish carmaker Saab automobile. (New York Times) (Wall Street Journal)
- After 27 years, Terry Wogan presents his last edition of Wake Up to Wogan on BBC Radio 2, receiving farewell messages from Gordon Brown and David Cameron. (The Times) (RTÉ) (BBC highlights)
- The Arbeit macht frei sign is stolen from Auschwitz concentration camp. (JTA) (Deutsche Welle) (RTÉ) (The Daily Telegraph)
- Ajmal Kasab, a Pakistani citizen who was involved in the 2008 Mumbai attacks, recants his confession, claiming that police tortured him into admitting his role in the attacks. (AP) (Press Trust Of India)
- Twitter, a popular micro-blogging service, temporarily goes offline after a group calling itself the "Iranian Cyber Army" manages to change its DNS records. (PC World) (CNN)
- Thirty world leaders present in Copenhagen for the United Nations Conference on Climate Change agree on a draft accord. (The Sydney Morning Herald)
- A large crater, dubbed the "Fried Egg" because of its shape, is discovered off the coast of The Azores in the Atlantic Ocean, prompting speculation that it may have been caused up to 17 million years ago by meteor impact. (BBC)
- Lava flows and ash explosions continue to emerge from Philippine volcano Mount Mayon while scientists predict a major eruption in the coming weeks and 30,000 people remain in temporary shelter. (BBC)
- In a reversal of a previous decision, Sir John Chilcot insists that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair will give the majority of his evidence to The Iraq Inquiry in public. (BBC)
- Snowfall across the east of England disrupts transport and power supplies. (BBC)
- The Iraqi government demands the withdrawal of Iranian soldiers that it claims seized an oil well in Fakkah, in the Maysan Governorate in southern Iraq. (CNN) (Gulf Daily News) (Al Jazeera)(NYT)
| | | - Mexican drug lord Arturo Beltrán Leyva, leader of the Beltrán-Leyva Cartel, is killed by personnel of the Mexican Navy during a shootout in Cuernavaca, Morelos. (The Times)
- Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen replaces Connie Hedegaard in a "procedural move" as president of the U.N. climate talks, as further clashes take place around the perimeter of the summit. (BBC News) (The Times) (Al Jazeera)
- Kelly Kwalik, leader of the Free Papua Movement (OPM), is fatally shot by police in Indonesia. (BBC) (The Jakarta Globe) (The Sydney Morning Herald)
- An unarmed 26-year-old man is detained after attempting to enter the hospital room of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi as he recuperates from the recent assault. (CNN) (The Daily Telegraph)
- Roy E. Disney, head of Disney Animation and responsible for guiding the studio through a golden age of animation, dies in a California hospital in the United States. (CNN)
- Malawi recognizes the independence of Kosovo (Kosovo Foreign ministry) (New Kosova Report)
- The Supreme Court of Pakistan declares NRO as unconstitutional, paving way for the reopening of the corruption cases involving the President and other senior officials. (The News) (BBC News)
- Archaeologists in Jerusalem say they have discovered a burial shroud from around the time of Jesus in a tomb. (Jerusalem Post) (Irish Times) (Zee News)
- Toumba Diakite, an aide to Guinea's military leader Moussa Dadis Camara admits to shooting him after the junta leader wanted him to take responsibility for the massacre of opposition protesters in September. (AP) (Ghana Broadcasting Corporation) (Xinhua)
- The Philippine province of Albay is put under a "state of imminent disaster" as activity at the Mayon Volcano increases. (GMA News)
- North Korea reportedly bans all foreigners from entering the country until early February 2010, for unknown reasons. (The Chosun Ilbo) (Bloomberg)
- Russian economist Yegor Gaidar, the architect of the neoliberal reforms of the early 1990s as the first finance minister of post-Soviet Russia, dies unexpectedly in his home. (BBC News) (New York Times) (RIA Novosti)
- Nauru recognizes the independence of South Ossetia, one day after also establishing diplomatic relations with Abkhazia. (Moscow Times)
- UK airline Flyglobespan goes into administration, with the cancellation of all scheduled flights. (BreakingNews)
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