Today is Wednesday, December 9, the 343rd day of 2009. There are 22 days left in the year.

Today’s Highlight

2007: The world’s top two polluters, the United States and China, say they are not ready to commit to mandatory caps on global-warming gases at the UN climate conference in Bali.

Other Notable Events

1793: Noah Webster establishes New York City’s first daily newspaper.

1905: Separation of church and state in France is decreed.

1940: British 8th Army opens offensive in North Africa in World War II.

1941: China declares war on Japan, Germany and Italy.

1946: Indian Constituent Assembly is boycotted by Muslim League.

1951: The United States invokes its Trading with the Enemy Act to prevent Chinese people in the United States from sending money to Communist China under extortion threats.

1962: Tanganyika becomes republic within British Commonwealth.

1972: North Vietnam and Soviet Union conclude agreement for economic and military aid to Hanoi.

1975: Death toll is put at 160 in two days as war rages between Muslims and Christians in Beirut, Lebanon.

1982: South African troops stage a pre-dawn raid on Maseru, the capital of Lesotho, in an effort to kill suspected members of the African National Congress, the black nationalist group banned by South Africa’s apartheid government.

1990: Poles elect Solidarity Labour Union founder Lech Walesa president in free elections.

1991: Mikhail Gorbachev calls new Commonwealth of Independent States “illegal and dangerous”.

1992: Prince Charles and Princess Diana of Britain announce they are separating but have no plans to divorce.

1993: Fighting continues in Bosnian capital of Sarajevo as international mediators fail to revive negotiations.

1994: After 25 years of violence, the Irish Republican Army sits down with British officials to talk peace; US President Bill Clinton fires Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders after learning she had told a conference that masturbation should be discussed in school as a part of human sexuality.

1995: In India, 75 million children get polio vaccines in an attempt to eradicate the crippling disease.

1996: Riot police chase protesting students through the streets of Rangoon, Burma, now known as Myanmar, and the military government closes universities.

1997: Spain softens its long-standing claim on the British colony of Gibraltar, saying it can accept shared sovereignty.

1998: British Home Secretary Jack Straw rules that Spain can start proceedings to extradite former Chilean dictator Gen Augusto Pinochet. Chile withdraws its ambassador from Britain.

2001: The United States discloses a video in which Osama bin Laden says he was pleasantly surprised by the extent of damage from the Sept 11 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

2003: A female suicide bomber blows herself up outside the National Hotel across from Moscow’s Red Square, killing five others and raising fears of a new wave of terror attacks in the heart of the Russian capital.

2004: Canada’s Supreme Court rules that gay marriage is constitutional, a landmark opinion allowing the federal government to call on Parliament to legalise same-sex unions nationwide.

2008: Masked youths and looters maraud through Greek cities for a fourth night in an explosion of rage triggered by the police shooting of a teenager that unleashed the most violent riots in a quarter century.

Today’s Birthdays

John Milton, English poet (1608-1674); Karl Wilhelm Scheele, Swedish chemist (1742-1786); Claude-Louis Ertholle, French chemist (1748-1822); Kirk Douglas, US actor (1916-); Bob Hawke, former Australian prime minister (1929-); Judi Dench, British actress (1934-): Beau Bridges, US actor (1941–); John Malkovich, US actor (1953-).