2009 Review: November

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

November 2

* Hamid Karzai is declared the winner of Afghanistan's presidential election when officials scrapped the second round of voting following the withdrawal of his opponent

* Russian-Israeli businessman Shabtai von Kalmanovich is shot dead in central Moscow bringing an end to a colorful life that had seen a flirtation with showbiz and a conviction for spying

November 3

* Former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic attends a court session in The Hague for the first time, telling the judges he needed more time to prepare his defense

* Czech President Vaclav Klaus signs the EU's Lisbon Treaty after the country's Constitutional Court rules that the ambitious reform treaty was in line with the Czech constitution

November 4

 * Billionaire Michael Bloomberg, incumbent mayor of New York, is reelected for a third term

* U.S. General Motors (GM) board of directors decides against selling Germany's Opel to the Magna-Sberbank consortium and to retain its big European car division

November 6

* Honduran de-facto leader Roberto Micheletti announces the formation of a reconciliation government

November 9

* Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez calls on his country to prepare for a possible war, once again criticizing a military cooperation agreement between Colombia and the U.S.

* Russian physicist and Nobel laureate Vitaly Ginzburg dies in Moscow at the age of 94

November 10

* The Lebanese prime minister, Saad Hariri, forms a new government with the militant group Hezbollah-led opposition, putting an end to months of political uncertainty in the country

November 12

* Russian President Dmitry Medvedev delivers his second state of the nation address to both houses of parliament in the Grand Kremlin Palace

November 13

* President Barack Obama renews U.S. economic sanctions against Iran for another year

November 19

* EU leaders choose Belgian Prime Minister Herman Van Rompuy to be the first president of the European Union and Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton as new EU foreign policy chief

* Russia's Constitutional Court prolongs a moratorium on the death penalty, which was due to expire on January 1, until it is banned completely

November 24

* Russia's Gazprom and Ukraine's Naftogaz agree to reduce Russian national gas deliveries by 35% in 2010, from the previously contracted 52 billion cubic meters to 33.75 bcm

November 26

* The Honduras Supreme Court dismisses ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya's claim for reinstatement

* The Russian government approves a national energy strategy until 2030 that envisages raising oil output up to 530-535 million metric tons from last year's 488 million

November 27

* Three carriages of the Nevsky Express high-speed train travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburg derail, killing 28 passengers and injuring at least 90, an emergencies official

November 29

* Switzerland votes to ban the construction of new minarets, disappointing the country's Muslims but making those who proposed the nationwide referendum rejoice at its results

November 30

* The UN Security Council extends the mandate of an international anti-piracy mission off the coast of Somalia for another year

* Serbian poet, novelist and historian Milorad Pavic died of heart failure at the age of 80

* The trial of Ukrainian-born John Demjanjuk, charged with involvement in the murder of 27,900 people during World War II, starts in Munich

* The Large Hadron Collider sets a new world record accelerating its twin beams of protons to unprecedented energy levels