September 23, 2009 (Wednesday)
- The cities of Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane in Australia are covered by a dust storm, the worst in at least 70 years. Aviation in New South Wales is disrupted. (The Australian) (ABC News) (The Canberra Times)
- A chimney collapse in Korba in the Indian state of Chhattisgarh leaves at least 15 workers dead and at least 50 feared trapped. (BBC)
- The Libyan government pitches a tent in suburban New York on land rented from Donald Trump that leader Muammar al-Gaddafi may use for entertaining, but local officials order workers to stop the construction, saying it "violated several codes and laws of the town of Bedford". (The Sydney Morning Herald) (The Times) (BBC) (South China Morning Post) (The New Zealand Herald)[permanent dead link]
- Prime Minister of Bhutan Jigme Thinley describes an earthquake which hit the Himalayan kingdom on Monday as "one of the biggest disasters in recent times". (BBC)
- Gay activists in South Africa welcome a life sentence for a man involved in the gang rape and murder of lesbian football star Eudy Simelane, one of the first women to openly live as a lesbian in her community of KwaThema. (BBC)
- Former President of Cuba Fidel Castro praises current President of the United States Barack Obama for his speech before the United Nations General Assembly for admitting it had been slow to act on climate change but urges that the American capitalist system is incompatible with a clean planet. (BBC)
- One of the busiest border crossings between Mexico and the United States at San Ysidro is closed for hours after a gun battle between US agents and suspected human traffickers. (BBC) (The Washington Post') (Herald Sun)
- A Scottish £1 banknote, dated 1836, sells for a world record £9,000 price at auction. (BBC)
- Swedish police hunt for robbers who used a stolen helicopter to raid a cash depot in Stockholm. (RTÉ) (BBC)
- A report carried by The Sydney Morning Herald says Australia is poised to be the world's fastest growing industrialised nation over the next four decades, reaching a population of 35 million by 2050. (The New Zealand Herald)
- The Bundespolizei investigate whether a string of letters from the far-right NPD party to politicians from immigrant backgrounds have incited racial hatred. (BBC) (Deusche Welle)
- A court in Tanzania sentences three men to death by hanging for killing a 14-year-old albino boy, Matatizo Dunia, to steal parts of his anatomy. It is the country's first conviction for this offence. (BBC)
- A man is shot dead in a clash between police and supporters of ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya, believed to be the first death since his return to the country. (RTÉ)
- Indian villagers accuse the actress Julia Roberts of interrupting Navratri. (BBC)
- India successfully launches seven satellites in a single mission one month after its inaugural Moon mission is aborted. Included are six smaller satellites from Germany, Switzerland and Turkey. (BBC) (IOL)[permanent dead link]
- Julio Alberto Poch, a Transavia commercial airline pilot, is arrested in Spain over his alleged role in Argentina's 1976–1983 "Dirty War". (BBC) (The Guardian) (The Times) (Miami Herald)[permanent dead link] (Reuters)
- In his first United Nations appearance, Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi calls for reform of the Security Council and chastises the Council for failing to intervene or prevent some 65 wars since the U.N. was founded in 1945. (MSNBC)
- China relaxes travel curbs for Guangdong residents visiting Macau. (The Straits Times)
- Human Rights Watch urges world leaders to call on Sri Lanka to free hundreds of thousands of displaced people detained in camps since the island's civil war ended. (The Straits Times)
- A Polish court awards €7,400 damages to Alicja Tysiąc, likened to a child killer and Nazi war criminal by Catholic magazine Gość Niedzielny for wanting an abortion. (BBC)
- Germany's first nudist hiking trail opens. (Der Spiegel) (The Sydney Morning Herald) (Reuters) (MSNBC)
- ABBA, Genesis, Kiss, LL Cool J, Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Stooges are amongst several acts nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (Rolling Stone) (CBC) (Billboard)
- The multi-billion dollar King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, boasting one of the world's fastest supercomputers, opens near Jeddah in Saudi Arabia in an attempt to enable the country to compete in science and technology internationally. (BBC)