December 30, 2009

2009Rowland S. Howard, Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist (born 1959)^[†]

Rowland Stuart Howard was an Australian rock musician, guitarist and songwriter, best known for his work with the post-punk group The Birthday Party and his subsequent solo career.

2009Abdurrahman Wahid, Indonesian journalist and politician, fourth President of Indonesia (born 1940)^[†]

Abdurrahman Wahid, more colloquially known as Gus Dur, was an Indonesian politician and Islamic religious leader who served as the fourth president of Indonesia, from his election in 1999 until he was removed from office in 2001. A long time leader within the Nahdlatul Ulama organization, he was the founder of the National Awakening Party (PKB). He was the son of Minister of Religious Affairs Wahid Hasyim, and the grandson of Nahdatul Ulama founder Hasyim Asy'ari. Due to a visual impairment caused by glaucoma, he was blind in the left eye and partially blind in his right eye. He was the first president of Indonesia to have had physical disabilities.

2009A segment of the Lanzhou–Zhengzhou–Changsha pipeline ruptures in Shaanxi, China, and approximately 150,000 L (40,000 US gal) of diesel oil flows down the Wei River before finally reaching the Yellow River.^[†]

The Lanzhou–Zhengzhou–Changsha product oil pipeline is a pipeline carrying diesel and other oil products from the northwest to the central regions of China. The 2,070-kilometre (1,290 mi) pipeline starts in Lanzhou in Gansu, and runs through Zhengzhou in Henan to Changsha in Hunan. In Zhengzhou, it is linked with Jinzhou–Zhengzhou product pipeline running from Jinzhou in Liaoning to Zhengzhou.

2009A suicide bomber kills nine people at Forward Operating Base Chapman, a key facility of the Central Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan.^[†]

The Camp Chapman attack was a suicide attack by Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi against the Central Intelligence Agency facility inside Forward Operating Base Chapman on December 30, 2009. One of the main tasks of the CIA personnel stationed at the base was to provide intelligence supporting drone attacks in Pakistan. Seven American CIA officers and contractors, an officer of Jordan's intelligence service, and an Afghan working for the CIA were killed when al-Balawi detonated a bomb sewn into a vest he was wearing. Six other American CIA officers were wounded. The bombing was the most lethal attack against the CIA in more than 25 years.