Portal:Current events/2009 February 17
February 17, 2009 (Tuesday)
- United States President Barack Obama authorizes the deployment of 12,000 more soldiers into the Afghanistan War. (CNN)
- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charges Stanford Financial Group Chairman Allen Stanford with fraud. (BBC)
- British lawyer David Mills is sentenced to four-and-a-half years in jail for accepting a £400,000 bribe from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. (BBC)
- Walter Veltroni resigns as Secretary of Italy's Democratic Party. (BBC)
- Legal charges against The Pirate Bay are amended. (The Local)
- Late 2000s recession in the Americas:
- U.S. President Obama signs the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 in Denver, Colorado. (CNN)
- General Motors and Chrysler inform the U.S. federal government that they will need additional loans of $21.6 billion. (CNN)
- Shōichi Nakagawa will resign as Japan's Minister of Finance after the National Diet approves a budget in April. (AP via Google News)
- California will lay off 20,000 government workers, due to the State Legislature's failure to pass a budget. (Reuters)
- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives in Japan to deliberate the global economic crisis and international security. (Sky News)
- Former Khmer Rouge leader Kang Kek Iew stands trial before the Extraordinary Chambers in Cambodia. (CNN)
- Irish Nationwide Chairman Michael Walsh resigns over his involvement in questionable loan arrangements with Anglo Irish Bank. (RTÉ)
- Fifty people are detained in Guadeloupe after general strikes escalate into rioting. (International Herald Tribune)