Portal:Current events/2008 November 18
November 18, 2008 (Tuesday)
- Democrat Mark Begich defeats Republican incumbent Ted Stevens in Alaska's highly contested Senate race. Begich will be the first Democratic senator representing the state in twenty-eight years. (AP via MSNBC)
- Togiola Tulafono is re-elected as Governor of American Samoa, easily defeating challenger Utu Abe Malae. (Pacific Magazine)
- Takehiko Yamaguchi, a former Japanese Vice Minister for Health, and his wife are found stabbed to death in Saitama, a suburb of Tokyo. (BBC News)
- Global financial crisis of 2008:
- Central European stocks drop to a three-week low on expectations of slowing economic growth. Poland forecasts economic growth to drop to 2.3% in 2009 from 5.4% in 2008 and the Warsaw Stock Exchange's WIG 20 index falls 3.5% in two hours. Bulgaria's Sofia Stock Exchange is at a five-year low. Both Bulgaria and Romania may need International Monetary Fund loans to repay US$100 billion of external debt. (Bloomberg)
- HSBC Holdings announces 500 layoffs in Hong Kong. (CNN-IBN)
- Pepsi announces 3,000 layoffs in the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Europe. (CNN-IBN)
- 2008 Russian financial crisis: Trading will remain suspended at the Moscow Interbank Currency Exchange for another two days or until the Federal Financial Markets Service instructs otherwise. (Forbes)[permanent dead link]
- 2008 Nord-Kivu fighting: War crimes are reported in the Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo after a ceasefire is broken and fighting resumes, leaving at least 100 civilians dead. (INSI)