July 30, 2009 (Thursday)
- 70,000 people are evacuated from Bryan, TX, United States, after ammonium nitrate is released during a fire at the El Dorado Chemical Company warehouse there.(AP via google)
- Palmanova bombing
- At least two people are killed in a car bomb explosion at a Guardia Civil barracks in Palma Nova on the Spanish island of Mallorca. (RTÉ) (Straits Times)
- Travel chaos ensues as police order the closure of all airports and ports to prevent the culprits escaping. (BBC) (BBC) (Daily Mail)
- Albania's Prime Minister Sali Berisha indicates he may legalise gay marriage in the country. (CBS) (Straits Times)
- 2009 Nigeria religious violence
- Nigerian forces attack a mosque used by the militant Islamist Boko Haram group. (This Day) (Al Jazeera) (The Times)
- Boko Haram Islamist sect leader Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf is shot and killed in Nigeria. (The Times)
- The United States Coast Guard calls off its search for as many as 79 Haitians missing after their boat capsized near the Turks and Caicos Islands with two hundred people onboard. (Al Jazeera) (CNN)
- Iranian police clash with mourners at a Tehranian cemetery for a memorial to those killed in post-election violence, using teargas to disperse crowds from the grave of Neda Agha-Soltan and forcing Opposition leader Mir-Hossein Mousavi to make his exit. (BBC) (RTÉ)
- Cook Islands Prime Minister Jim Marurai fires Foreign Minister Wilkie Rasmussen, accusing him of plotting to topple the government. (RNZI)
- A South Korean fishing boat is towed away by a North Korean patrol boat. (Al Jazeera) (BBC) (The Korea Times) (RTÉ)
- Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin says he is ready for dialogue "with all political forces represented in the new parliament". (RTÉ)
- Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd promises to create 50,000 green jobs and apprenticeships to combat climate change and unemployment simultaneously. (Straits Times)
- U.S. President Barack Obama arranged a meeting with police officer Sgt. James Crowley and African American public intellectual Henry Louis Gates at the White House in a bid to quell a dispute over racial profiling that arose from an altercation between the two of them. (AP via New York Times)
- Referendum Commission research indicates a significant increase in the level of understanding of the Treaty of Lisbon among Irish voters. (RTÉ)
- Islamist militants kill at least 15 Algerian soldiers and injure 20 others in an ambush outside Tipaza. (BBC)
- 8 people are killed and 10 are injured in a bomb attack on the offices of a Sunni political party, Kitab Sultan, in Diyala Governorate. (Straits Times)
- Multiple sclerosis sufferer Debbie Purdy wins a "landmark victory" in the House of Lords in her fight to allow her husband to help her commit suicide abroad. (RTÉ) (Sky News)
- Iraq's government admit that seven Iranian exiles were killed when Iraqi forces took control of their camp north of Baghdad. (Reuters)
- University College Dublin quarantines seven language students after around sixty mainly Italian and Russian students are assessed by doctors for swine flu. (RTÉ)
- The United States Presidential Medal of Freedom is awarded to several international figures including Stephen Hawking, Billie Jean King, Harvey Milk, Sidney Poitier, Mary Robinson, Desmond Tutu and Muhammad Yunus. (Boston Globe) (The Los Angeles Times) (San Francisco Chronicle)