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Events
- The United States Senate voted 89-10 to renew the USA PATRIOT Act after two extensions. In its vote next week, the United States House of Representatives will likely also vote to renew the Act,
analysts say. (MSNBC)
- In a major turnaround for American policy, the United States signs a historic
civilian nuclear pact with India, which promises to bolster
India's rapidly growing economy. (Forbes) (Times of India) (CNN)
- A shipwreck from the 14th century was found buried in Riddarfjärden Bay in Stockholm, Sweden.
If the ship is well preserved, there are plans to remove it from the waters. (ABC)
- Alaksandar Kazulin, the Social Democratic Party candidate for the office of President of Belarus, was detained by Minsk police after he was
rejected entrance to a congress hosted by current leader Alexander Lukashenko.
Kazulin also suffered injuries during the course of his detention, which is still being enforced, though the elections will commence in 17 days. (BBC).
- Traces of a prehistoric, 8,000-year-old civilization are found in Shahrud, Iran. The discoveries included ovens, craft workshops, and other evidence of settlements. (Payvand)
- Televangelist Pat Robertson loses his bid for re-election to the board of directors of
the National Religious Broadcasters. (Associated Press)
- Dubai Ports World controversy: The United States urges the United Arab Emirates to end its
boycott of Israel: "The Bush administration said yesterday it is pressing the United Arab
Emirates to drop its economic boycott of Israel - a major sticking point in the proposed takeover of key U.S. ports by a
UAE-owned firm." (The
Washington Times)
- Sir Menzies Campbell has been elected the new leader of the UK Liberal Democrats Party. (BBC)
- The European Central Bank raises Euro base
interest rates by 0.25% to 2.5%. The move affects the 12 members of the Eurozone. (FT)
- Kenya: Masked gunmen, since revealed to be Kenyan police,
attack the offices of leading newspaper The Standard and its television
station KTN, following their report that President Mwai Kibaki held secret meetings with key
opposition figure Kalonzo Musyoka. (BBC), (Reuters)
- CIA flights: French newspaper Le Figaro reveals
that the attorney general of Bobigny has opened up an
investigation concerning the landing of a CIA flight in Le Bourget Airport following a complaint deposed at the end of December 2005 by
NGOs International Federation of Human Rights Leagues and the French
Ligue des droits de l'homme. (Le Figaro)
- Crowds of 100,000 people protest against President of the United
States George W. Bush while he is in Delhi.
(Times of
India)(Khaleej Times).
- Just two days before U.S. President George W. Bush is scheduled to visit Pakistan, a car bomb exploded in
the Marriott Hotel Karachi parking lot adjacent to a United States consulate in
Karachi, killing at least four people including a US diplomat and his driver and injuring at
least fifty others. (CNN)
- A prison riot involving close to 1,300 prisoners at Afghanistan's Pul-e-Charkhi prison ended after four days.
(BBC)
- Italian judges in Milan to charge Prime Minister
Silvio Berlusconi and David Mills
(husband of Tessa Jowell, a British Minister) in
connection with a bribery scandal. (Independent).
- Former Iranian President Mohammad
Khatami, member of the moderate wing of the regime, describes the Holocaust as a
"historical reality," contradicting the current leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, an
extremist who has described it as a "myth" last year. (BBC)
- Research In Motion, a Waterloo,
Ontario, Canadian based company, agrees to pay NTP Inc.
$612.5 million to settle NTP's patent-infringement
suit against RIM. NTP had argued RIM's BlackBerry wireless-communication devices use
technology patented by NTP. (AP)
- The ruling African National Congress takes 66% of the votes in the
2006 South African municipal election. Voter turnout was 46%. No
party in the City of Cape
Town claims an outright majority. (BBC)
- Russian-Hamas talks, 2006: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey
Lavrov, in his talks with the Hamas leader Khaled Mashal , calls on
Hamas to transform itself into a political organisation,
recognise Israel's right to exist, and to keep previous peace accords. (BBC), (Reuters)
- Kenya and Sudan, completing trade talks that have gone on since
2001, announce plans to sign a landmark trade agreement. (AllAfrica) Kenya, which is currently
in a drought, is in desperate need of food to feed 3.5 million Kenyans by the end of March, despite the presence of the U.N. food
agency. Sudan has had a huge surplus this season. (Reuters)
- Three Israelis ignite firecrackers in an attempt to detonate gas canisters smuggled into
the Church of the Annunciation in Nazareth
during prayer services, sparking riots and confrontation between thousands of protestors and Israeli police. (CBC) (YNet)
- After four years of legal efforts to get the names of about 490 Guantanamo
Bay inmates released, the United States is forced by a federal judge's ruling to release transcripts of hearings of 317 of them. (ABC)
- Former U.S. House Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham (Rep.,
CA) is sentenced to eight years and four months in prison, the longest
sentence ever for a congressman, for collecting $2.4 million in bribes. (CNN)
- British Labour Party MPs close to Gordon Brown call for Culture Secretary
Tessa Jowell to resign over her husband, David
Mills' alleged acceptance of money from Silvio Berlusconi. (Financial
Times)
- The 2006 Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference opens in Beijing. (People's Daily)
- British Rock star Gary Glitter is convicted of the molestation of one 11- and one
12-year-old girl in the town of Vung Tau in southern Vietnam.
He is sentenced to 3 years in prison, but may be back in the United Kingdom by December.
(BBC News)
- An Italian parliamentary commission accuses the former Soviet
Union of orchestrating the 1981 attempt to assassinate Pope John Paul II
(Telegraph)
- Ukraine imposed new customs regulations on its border with Transnistria, leading to the Ukraine-Transnistria border customs conflict.
- 78th Academy Awards: Crash
wins Best Picture, Ang Lee
(Brokeback Mountain) wins Best Director, Reese Witherspoon
(Walk the Line) wins Best
Actress, and Philip Seymour Hoffman (Capote) wins Best Actor. (CNN)
- The 2006 National People's Congress opens in Beijing, beginning a 10-day session of China's parliament. Premier Wen
Jiabao makes a Working Report and vows for support for the poor. (CNN) (People's Daily)
- Benin presidential election, 2006: Voters in Benin go to the polls to decide who will succeed Mathieu Kérékou
as President. Results are expected to be announced by Wednesday. If no
single candidate of the 26 wins an outright majority, a runoff election will take place in
two weeks. (Scotsman), (VOA), (Reuters)
- Tens of thousands of protesters in Bangkok demand the resignation of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of
Thailand. (BBC), (Reuters), (CNN)
- The United Kingdom government is defeated in the House of Lords over a plan to make biometric ID cards compulsory for passport applicants. The government is to seek to overturn the defeat in the
House of Commons, and has suggested that it might invoke the Parliament Act. (United Press International)
- Israeli aircraft fire rockets at a car in Gaza, killing two
Islamic Jihad members and three innocent bystanders as well as
wounding seven other people, mostly children. Commander-in-Chief of the Israel Air
Force, Maj.-Gen. Eliezer Shkedy said: "We are doing everything we can possibly think of to
prevent innocent people from being harmed, but this is a war and nothing is certain." (JPost)
- Milan Babić, former leader of the breakaway Republic of Serbian Krajina, commits suicide in prison
while serving a sentence for war crimes. (BBC)
- M. Michael Rounds, governor of the
U.S. State of South
Dakota, signs an abortion ban that conflicts with the United States Supreme Court's landmark 1973
Roe v. Wade decision. (MSNBC)
- The sentencing hearing of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person indicted in the US
for a direct role in the 9/11 attacks, has opened in Virginia. (BBC)
- Avian flu outbreak: Poland confirms first outbreak of H5N1, the
bird flu virus, in two wild swans. (News-Medical Net) (BBC)
- In South Africa, former Deputy President (1999-2005) Jacob
Zuma pleads not guilty of rape as his trial starts.
(Iafrica) (BBC)
- Further evidence accrues to show that the polar ice caps are shrinking. (BBC)
- The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter enters orbit around Mars. (BBC)
- More than 250 medical experts sign a letter in The Lancet urging the United States to stop force-feeding of Guantanamo Bay detainees and close down the prison. (BBC)
- The World Health Organization announces that the number of people killed
by measles declined by 48% between 1999 and 2004, from 871,000 to 454,000. The greatest decline,
60%, was in sub-Saharan Africa. The improvement is attributed to increased
vaccination. (BBC)
- John Profumo, the man at the centre of Britain's most famous political scandal of the 20th century, has
died at the age of 91. (Channel 4 News)
- Italian prosecutors ask for Prime Minister Silvio
Berlusconi and British lawyer David Mills to
be indicted in the on-going alleged bribery case (BBC)
- Twenty-six people are killed in Dera
Bugti, southwest Pakistan, when their vehicle hits a landmine. The victims were primarily women and children. Both tribal rebels and security forces
planted landmines in the area. (BBC)
- Terminal D at LaGuardia Airport in New York
City was closed due to a security breach. (CNN)
- Gale Norton has announced her resignation as United States Secretary of the Interior, effective March 31, 2006. (CNN)
- Algerian "national reconciliation". Abdelhak
Layada, one of the founder of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), is released from
prison due to the February 28, 2006 national reconciliation charter decree of application RFI.
- Venezuela introduces its new national flag with
eight, instead of seven, stars and a slightly altered coat of arms. (The
Washington Post)
- Reports claim that a post-mortem examination has found that former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević died from heart failure. (Channel 4
News)
- Six car bombs explode in Sadr City, a neighborhood in Baghdad, killing at least forty-six people. (CNN)
- In Malta, the Malta Labour Party makes a big
victory in the Local Council Elections (Times of Malta)
- Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh began their Visit to Australia which she will open the Commonwealth
Games in Melbourne.
- U.S. Senator Russ Feingold announces that he will introduce a motion of
censure against President George W. Bush. (RawStory)
- Schering, a Berlin, Germany based pharmaceutical firm, announces that it has received a hostile merger bid from Frankfurt-based rival Merck. (MSNBC) (Reuters)
- An attempted coup d'état against Chadian President Idriss Déby is foiled. (AP via The
Guardian)
- In London, six men taking part in a clinical
trial for a new monoclonal antibody anti-inflammatory drug,
TGN1412, are placed in intensive care, some in
a life-threatening condition, after suffering adverse side-effects. (BBC)
- Euronext, a derivatives exchange based in Amsterdam and
Paris, announces that it might join the ongoing auction for the London Stock Exchange — which would put it in competition with bidders Nasdaq and Deutsche Börse. (Forbes)
- Jordan is to indict Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for
bombings that killed over 60 people. (ABC)
- At least 80 people die in Iraq following an attack on a Shiite holy site. (LA Times)
- At least seven people have died in wildfires in the U.S. state of Texas which have burned 1,000 mi² (2500 km²), forcing 1,900 people to evacuate. (AP)
- The 2006 National People's Congress concludes in Beijing, China.
Premier Wen Jiabao holds annual press conference from Chinese and foreign reporters. Wen
reiterates Taiwan issue in serious tone. (People's Daily)
- Israeli-Palestinian conflict:
- Israeli troops shell and demolish a Palestinian prison
in Jericho, seizing Ahmad Sa'adat, imprisoned for
allegedly assassinating an Israeli minister. (BBC)
- In retaliation for the Israeli attack in Jericho, Palestinian gunmen kidnap and then
release American professor Douglas Johnson. (Forbes)
- Two armed gunmen attacked the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) compound in Yei, Sudan, killing a
local guard and leaving two others in critical condition. (Angola Press)
- The U.S. online magazine salon.com publishes the
most extensive documentation of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse.
(salon.com)
- United Kingdom: The House of
Commons votes to approve an education reform bill. The Prime minister,
Tony Blair's authority is called into question for his relying on the opposition
Conservative party to secure the vote, due to revolt within his own
Labour party. (Bloomberg)
- War in Iraq: A raid by the United
States military kills eleven Iraqis, mostly civilians. (Channel 4
News)
- The United Nations General Assembly votes to establish the
United Nations Human Rights Council, a new human rights organization to replace the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights, with only the United States, Israel, the Marshall Islands and Palau
opposing. (United Press International) (Reuters.uk)
- Queen Elizabeth II, Head of the Commonwealth opens the 2006 Commonwealth
Games in Melbourne, Australia. (BBC)
- Five arrests are made over the UK Islamist
demonstration outside the Danish Embassy in London against the
cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. (Guardian)
- Tens of thousands of Thai anti-government protesters continue their rally against the
country's current Thai Prime Minister