2009 Review: September

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

September 1

* Border traffic between North and South Korea resumes, following months of heavy restrictions imposed by the North

September 2

* Moldova's acting president Vladimir Voronin formally resigns to become a member of parliament, after strongly criticizing the incoming leadership

September 4

* North Korea begins the final stage of uranium enrichment, a method of producing nuclear weapons

September 7

* Greek President Karolos Papoulias signs a decree dismissing the country's parliament and setting early elections for October 4

September 10

* Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez says his country recognizes Georgia's two former breakaway republics as independent states

September 11

* Moldova's parliament appoints newly elected parliamentary speaker Mihai Ghimpu as acting president

September 14

* Yukiya Amano is approved as the next head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), to succeed Mohamed ElBaradei from December

September 16

* The European Parliament votes to give European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso a second five-year term in office

* The Japanese government, led by Prime Minister Taro Aso, resigns at an emergency session of the country's parliament

September 17

* U.S. President Barack Obama confirms that Washington is scrapping the Bush administration’s plans for a missile shield in Central Europe

September 18

* The first phase of massive joint Russian-Belarusian military exercises begins with the involvement of some 100 aircraft and 12,600 military personnel

September 22

* The highest-level conference on climate change opens at the United Nations to negotiate a new deal on how to combat global warming

September 24

* Russia's president arrives in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for a summit of the Group of 20 richest nations to move the focus onto trade and economic issues

September 25

* All members of the Group of 20 leading economies agree at their summit in Pittsburgh to continue state support measures to prevent a deepening of the economic crisis

September 27

* German Chancellor Angela Merkel announces victory for a new coalition of her conservative Christian Democrats and pro-business Free Democrats after the general election

September 28

* Iran test launches the longest-range missile in its arsenal as tensions grow with the West over its nuclear program

September 30

* Three new crewmembers on board a Soyuz TMA-16 spacecraft successfully blast off to the International Space Station