Portal:Current events/2006 November 20
November 20, 2006 (Monday)
- A fire in a marketplace in Guatemala City kills at least fifteen people. The fire started from a cigarette in a fireworks stall. (BBC)
- Kremlin dismisses claims of Russian involvement in the poisoning of former KGB spy Alexander Litvinenko as "sheer nonsense". (RTT via NASDAQ)
- An explosion on a train in East India at 1240 GMT kills 5 and injures 25 to 50 others. It occurs near a station in West Bengal, 550 kilometers (345 miles) north of the capital Kolkata. The cause of the explosion is unknown. (CNN)
- Syria and Iraq will restore diplomatic ties during a visit by Walid Moallem, the Syrian Foreign Minister, to Iraq. (CBS News)
- The Kazakh Government arrests 11 suspected terrorists in Stepnogorsk. (EurasiaNet)
- Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, accuses Home Secretary Jack Straw of participating in "demonization of Muslims only comparable to the demonization of Jews from the end of the 19th century" for his comments regarding veils. (JTA)
- A Berlin rapid transit train rear-ends a stationary maintenance vehicle at the busy Südkreuz station injuring 33 people, two of them seriously, officials said. (AP via Yahoo! News)
- American stock exchange Nasdaq launches a formal bid of £2.7 billion to take over the London Stock Exchange. (The Times)
- The President of the United States George W. Bush visits Indonesia to meet with the President of Indonesia Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono with large crowds protesting US foreign policy. (ABC News Australia)
- An 18-year-old armed man takes hostage several children and teachers of his former school in the German town of Emsdetten. He dies from bullet wounds. According to a police spokesman, these wounds were self-inflicted. Several hostages are injured. (in German) (WDR) (Reuters)
- Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who was narrowly defeated in the Mexican general election, is proclaimed "Legitimate President of Mexico" by his supporters and promises to set up a "parallel government". (BBC)
- A school bus carrying high school students falls nose-first 40 feet to the ground off an Interstate 565 overpass in downtown Huntsville, Alabama, killing four teenage girls. (Reuters)