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Events
1 March 2006 (Wednesday)
third grade now must wait until college to find another date of its
kind.
2 March 2006 (Thursday)
- 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)
3 March 2006 (Friday)
- 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.
4 March 2006 (Saturday)
5 March 2006 (Sunday)
- 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)
6 March 2006 (Monday)
- 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 Acts 1911 and
1949. (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)
7 March 2006 (Tuesday)
8 March 2006 (Wednesday)
9 March 2006 (Thursday)
10 March 2006 (Friday)
- 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)
11 March 2006 (Saturday)
12 March 2006 (Sunday)
- 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)
13 March 2006 (Monday)
14 March 2006 (Tuesday)
- 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:
15 March 2006 (Wednesday)
- 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)
16 March 2006 (Thursday)
- Tens
of thousands of Thai
anti-government protesters continue their rally against the
country's current Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra today. They
also demand his resignation from the post. The opposition leader,
Sondhi Limthongkul, declared he
and his party would not stop protesting all day and night until the
PM resigns. (Reuters)
- U.S. President George W. Bush nominates Idaho Governor Dirk Kempthorne as United States Secretary
of the Interior. (CNN)
- Near
the third anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war, U.S. and Iraqi forces on Thursday launch
an air assault known as Operation Swarmer into Salahuddin
province
in what was termed the largest air assault since
the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. (ABC News), (BBC), (USDoD)
- The Iraqi National
Assembly meets
for the first time since it was elected in December 2005.
(Reuters)
- An
international child pornography
network is discovered using information from an Internet chat room, leading to the worldwide arrests of 4
Australians, 13 Americans
, 10 Canadians
, and 2 Britons
. (National Nine News)
- The 2006 NCAA Men's Division 1 Basketball Tournament begins in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina; Salt Lake City, Utah; Jacksonville,
Florida; and San Diego, California
17 March 2006 (Friday)
- Beijing's wealthiest
millionaire, Yuan Baojing, and two
alleged accomplices are sentenced to death and executed by lethal injection for murder by a Liaoyang
court, making Yuan
the wealthiest person to be executed in PRC
history. (Xinhuanet) (Washington Post)
- The
European
Parliament
demands that Senegal
turn over Hissène Habré to Belgium
to be tried for his actions while he was President of Chad. Senegal is not
expected to comply, as it already refused extradition demands from the African Union. The ATDPH
has expressed its approval of the decision. (allafrica)
- Six
people have been charged in connection with Kenya
's biggest fraud, which cost the government
about $600m. (BBC)
- Following an outbreak of bird flu in Israel
, Europe bans imports of Israeli chicken; Ministry of Agriculture halts exports of
unprocessed birds; Kibbutzim in the south,
heart of Israel put under closure; four people hospitalized in the
south are found not to be infected with the disease.
(Ynetnews)
- Thomas
Lubanga, former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots
militia in the Democratic Republic of the
Congo
, becomes the first person arrested on behalf of,
and then referred to the International Criminal Court
for war crimes. (ICC)
- The
fourth global World Water Forum
meets in Mexico
City
to address problems of water
shortages and conflicts. Protesters claim the forum is a
platform for further privatization of
water supplies. (AP via Forbes)
- The International Crisis
Group warns that continued neglect of the Darfur conflict may lead to thousands more
deaths and spill over into neighboring countries, further
destabilizing the region. (Reuters)
18 March 2006 (Saturday)
- Hamas announces the formation of its new
cabinet to govern the territory under the control of the Palestinian Authority. Hamas, however,
in a last ditch effort to include the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine in the government, postponed by one
day the submission of the new cabinet to the approval of PNA
President Mahmoud Abbas. (IOL) (Al-Jazeera)
- 2006 labor protests in France:
In Paris
, and
other major French cities, hundreds of thousands of people march in
protest of the Contrat
de première embauche (First Employment Contract), a labor law
set to take effect in April that gives employers the right to fire
workers under the age of 26 in the first two years of their
employment without justification. (BBC)
- US Navy
warships engage pirates off the coast of
Somalia
, killing one, capturing 12, after the U.N. Security Council on March 15, encouraged any naval forces near Somalia
to take action against suspected piracy. This occurred after an
attack on a UN World Food
Program-chartered ship bringing drought-relief food supplies on
March 13. (AP) (UPI)
- The
Labor government of South
Australia
, led by
Mike Rann, has been returned with a ten
percent swing. (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
19 March 2006 (Sunday)
20 March 2006 (Monday)
- The
UN's refugee agency, the UNHCR, says it
has been ordered to leave Uzbekistan
within one month. (BBC)
- Belarusian presidential
election, 2006: Alexander
Lukashenko has been re-elected president of Belarus
with 82.6 percent of all votes, in an election
which is considered by many to have been rigged.
- At
0730 AEST, Tropical Cyclone Larry makes landfall near Innisfail
, Queensland
, Australia, with wind
gusts of 290 km/h (180 mph) recorded, which would make it
a Category 5 storm on the Australian scale for severity of
cyclones. (AAP)
- Russian President Vladimir Putin
visits Beijing on energy talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao. (Forbes)
- Charles, Prince
of Wales, and his wife, Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, begin
official visit to Egypt
, Saudi
Arabia
and India
.
- The
Northern
Hemisphere
Vernal Equinox and
the Southern
Hemisphere
Autumnal Equinox
occurred at 18:26 UTC.
21 March 2006 (Tuesday)
22 March 2006 (Wednesday)
- A
bankruptcy court judge in New York
has authorized the creation of an equity holders'
committee in connection with the reorganization of
auto parts maker Delphi
Corporation, (Reuters)
- University of
Wisconsin–Madison
scientists believe they may have discovered a
reason why the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus cannot yet jump easily between
humans. (BBC)
- The
MV
Queen of the North
, a 125 metre ferry operated by
BC Ferries, strikes a rock in British
Columbia
's Inside Passage
shortly after midnight, and sinks.
All passengers and crew are thought to have safely abandoned ship,
but two passengers are later declared missing and presumed dead.
(CBC)
- Basque
separatist group ETA announce a
permanent ceasefire to their 38-year campaign for independence from
Spain
, which has cost over 800 lives. (BBC)
- Russian President Vladimir Putin pays a visit to the Shaolin
Temple
, the symbol of Chinese Martial arts on his state visit to China. (SINA)
- Tracy Williams from Oldham
, Greater Manchester
, England
, is ordered
to pay £10,000 damages, plus £7,200 legal costs for libelling former parliamentary candidate Michael Keith Smith in a Yahoo chat room and in her
blog, making history in respect of legal
actions involving the Internet. She had accused Smith of
being a sex offender and a racist bigot. Williams did not file a
defence to the libel writ. (Manchester Evening News), (Times), (BBC)
- Ethiopia
: Government prosecutors withdrew charges against 18
out of 129 opposition figures and journalists facing charges
following last year's violent skirmishes in the country.
However, none of the party leaders of the Coalition for Unity and
Democracy (CUD) were included in this action.
23 March 2006 (Thursday)
24 March 2006 (Friday)
25 March 2006 (Saturday)
- A revolutionary scramjet jet engine designed to fly at 7 times sonic speed
is successfully tested in Australia.
(BBC)
- Canada
's annual seal hunt
has begun, amid international appeals for an end to the
controversial cull of up to 325,000 young
harp seal pups. The Canadian
government says the cull, which reportedly earns C$16.5m (£8.3m) in
meat and pelt sales, is also necessary to
control seal numbers. (BBC)
- An explosion at a French university
chemical research facility kills one professor. The cause is
unknown. (National Nine News)
- Protests
against the US immigration reform
bill H.R. 4437
are held in several US cities. 500,000 people march in Los Angeles
, California
, 50,000 in Denver, Colorado
, and 20,000 in Phoenix, Arizona
, protesting proposed legislation that includes
construction of a security wall along the United States-Mexico
border. (CNN) (BBC) (CBS4Denver) (East Valley Tribune)
- A
gunman killed six people at a party and then himself in the
Capitol
Hill massacre
in Seattle, Washington
. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)
- Reading Football Club are
promoted to the English
Premiership for the first time in their 135-year history. They
are also the first post-war Football
Club to be promoted to the English Premiership in March.
26 March 2006 (Sunday)
27 March 2006 (Monday)
28 March 2006 (Tuesday)
29 March 2006 (Wednesday)
30 March 2006 (Thursday)
31 March 2006 (Friday)
- In
Ukraine
, after days of vote tallying, Viktor Yanukovych's Party of Regions wins a plurality in the 2006 parliamentary
election. Central Election Commission of Ukraine
- Chadian
senior army commander Abakar
Itno is assassinated by a joint
force of Janjaweed, Rally for Democracy and
Liberty, and Sudanese military
forces. (Reuters)
- Jack Abramoff
scandals: Lobbyist Tony C. Rudy, former chief of staff for Rep.
Tom DeLay (R-TX
), pleads
guilty to conspiracy and agrees to cooperate with the ongoing
investigation into the Jack Abramoff Indian
lobbying scandal. (Washington Post)
- MINOS
(the Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search)
observes neutrino oscillation,
implying that neutrinos have mass, which would require a substantial revision to the
Standard Model of particle physics. (BBC) (PhysOrg.com) (MINOS)
- A
The Nation Group's newspaper critical of Thai
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra agrees to stop
publishing for five days amid protests about
the way it referred to the King of
Thailand. (Bangkok Post)
- In
Brussels
, Microsoft claims a
breakthrough, as an independent monitor of its hearings with
European Union regulators in Brussels
has outlined what it can do to avoid paying fines
of 2 millions euros a day. (IHT)
- An
earthquake measuring 6 on the Richter
scale rocks Iran
early in the
morning killing 66 people and wiping out a number of
villages. (ABC News) See 2006
Borujerd earthquake
- An
intruder enters a church in
Malta
during mass and
smashes a 200 year old Jerusalem
mother-of-pearl
crucifix creating commotion.
(Times of Malta)