January 9, 2013 (Wednesday)
Armed conflicts and attacks
- Syrian civil war:
- Forty-eight Iranians who were kidnapped by Free Syrian Army rebels in the capital Damascus in August 2012 are released in exchange for 2,130 prisoners held by the Syrian government. (BBC)
Business and economy
- James M. Buchanan, who won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1986 for his role in developing public choice theory, dies aged 93 in the American town of Blacksburg, Virginia. (AAP via News Limited)
- AIG announces that it will not join a lawsuit against the U.S. government over the 2008 bailout. (CNN)
Disasters and accidents
- A SeaStreak ferry travelling to Lower Manhattan, New York City, crashes into the dock, injuring 85 people. (CNN)
Law and crime
- Retired British businessman Christopher Tappin is sentenced to 33 months in prison by a U.S. court after pleading guilty to selling weapon parts to Iran. (BBC)
- Despite international protest, Sri-Lankan maid Rizana Nafeek is executed in Saudi Arabia for killing an infant in her care. (BBC) (Daily Mirror)
Politics and elections
- U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis announces her resignation from the position, and is expected to step down some time around the presidential inauguration in late January. (CNN)
- The Venezuelan Supreme Tribunal of Justice rules that the latest inauguration of President Hugo Chávez can be deferred while his recovery continues from a cancer operation. (Reuters)
Sport
- In baseball, no candidates were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame for the first time since 1996, with some candidates such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens performing poorly due to allegations of steroid use. (The New York Times)
- In ice hockey, the Board of Governors of the National Hockey League unanimously approves the new CBA between the league and the National Hockey League Players' Association. Pending approval of the CBA by the players' association, the league will play a shortened 48-game 2012–13 NHL season beginning January 19. (ESPN)