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January 2006' :
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===
1 January 2006 (Sunday)===
★
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accuses
European nations of trying to complete the
Holocaust by creating a "
Jewish camp"
Israel in the
Middle East. "Don't you think that continuation of
genocide by expelling
Jews from Europe was one of their aims in creating a regime of occupiers of
Al-Quds (
Jerusalem) Isn't that an important question?" He went on to say that Europe should cede some of their territory for a Jewish state, and that
anti-Semitism has a long history in Europe, while Jews have lived peacefully among
Muslims for centuries.
(Reuters)
★
Russia-Ukraine gas dispute:
Russian
natural gas supplier
Gazprom cuts gas supplies to
Ukraine, following Ukraine's rejection of a 460% price increase. President
Vladimir Putin had offered a three-month price freeze if Ukraine would agree to pay the higher price thereafter, but this was rejected. Ukraine currently pays US$50 per 1000 cubic metres, Russia claims the market rate is $230.
(BBC)
★
Tropical Storm Zeta continues activity in the
Atlantic Ocean, becoming only the second North Atlantic
tropical cyclone to exist across two calendar years and extending the already historic
2005 Atlantic hurricane season even further.
(CNN)
★ At least three
Qassam rockets landed in the western
Negev, despite
Israel Defense Forces'
Operation Blue Skies. At least one Qassam rocket landed in
Sderot, in which the
Red Dawn alert system was activated around 15:30. Two Qassam rockets landed in an open area near
Israeli communities in the western Negev. In all the cases there were no injuries.
(Ynetnews)
★ Residents brace as a second winter storm hits the region, a day after the first caused floods and mudslides across
northern California.
(LA Times) (AP via Yahoo!)
===
2 January 2006 (Monday)===
★
Ugandan presidential candidate
Kizza Besigye is released from prison. Besigye was arrested on November 14 on treason and rape charges.
(News24)
★ Thirteen
U.S. coal miners are trapped after an underground explosion in
Upshur County,
West Virginia.
(ABC)
★
Russia-Ukraine gas dispute: Countries across Europe report reductions in gas supplies after
Russia disconnected supplies to
Ukraine yesterday. Russia accuses Ukraine of stealing 100 million cubic metres of gas yesterday from pipelines transiting the country; Ukraine denies this but has previously claimed the right to 15% of the gas as a transit toll.
Hungary reports supplies are down by 40%,
France and
Italy by 30%, and
Poland by 14%.
Germany, Russia's principal customer, also reports reductions. Russian supplier
Gazprom says that it will increase supplies and return them to normal by Tuesday night.
(Sky News)
★ Police are investigating the New Year's Day murder of
Bryan Harvey, who with his wife and two young daughters were found dead with their throats slashed in the basement of their
South Side Richmond, Virginia home, which was then set afire. Harvey was former singer and guitarist of 1980’s band
House of Freaks and his wife was the half-sister of
Steven Culp, who played Rex Van De Kamp on ''
Desperate Housewives''. The fire was discovered by
Johnny Hott, HOF bandmate and drummer for the band
Cracker (ABC) (New York Daily News) (Billboard)
★ Eleven people are killed when the roof of an ice rink
collapse in
Bad Reichenhall, southern
Germany, under the weight of recent snowfall, trapping some 50 skaters underneath.
(CNN)
★ Several
exploits of a severe
Windows security vulnerability are spreading over the Internet, permitting compromise of any
Windows computer merely by viewing a maliciously crafted image on a
website or in
e-mail or
instant messaging. No patch from Microsoft is available, however an unofficial patch exists
[1]. The vulnerability affects every version of Windows, potentially affecting more computers than any prior computer security vulnerability in history.
(Microsoft) (CERT) (Slashdot) (Sans) (F-Secure)
★ The leader of the
Maoist
guerrillas in
Nepal issued a statement that his group, the ''People's Liberation Army,'' will resume its war with the monarchy after a four month truce.
(New Kerala)
★ Severe storms affected
East Java,
Indonesia, leading to flooding and
landslides. At least 57 people are believed to have been killed in the flooding and up to a further 200 people were assumed to be buried alive in the town of Cijeruk 350 kilometers east of
Jakarta.
(BBC)
===
3 January 2006 (Tuesday)===
★ U.S. pilots targeting a house outside of Baghdad where they believed insurgents had taken shelter killed a family of 12.
(Washington Post)
★
Israeli television claims that Police in
Tel Aviv found evidence that proves
Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon's family took bribes while Sharon was running for the leadership of the
Likud Party. An aide dismissed the allegations.
(BBC)
★
Sago Mine disaster: In
West Virginia,
USA, family members now say only one trapped miner has been brought out alive from the collapsed
coal mine. All 12 others are dead. Earlier news reports, at approximately 10:30 p.m. EST, indicated that 12 miners were found alive. Rescue crews found one body late Tuesday after 13 miners were trapped following an explosion on Monday.
(Yahoo!) (ABC)
★
Russia-Ukraine gas dispute: The
Russian and
Ukrainian natural gas companies agree to end their dispute and resume gas supply to Ukraine under a complex price scheme in which OAO Gazprom will sell gas to the Rosukrenergo trading company (owned by
Gazprom Bank and Raiffeisen Bank) for US$230 (E195) per 1,000 cubic meters as of Jan. 1, and Ukraine will buy gas from the company for US$95 (E80).
(IHT)
★
Chinese journalist and
whistleblower Jiang Weiping, who was jailed in
2000 for violating the
State Secrets Law on charges of "
subversion," is released after the one year left on his prison sentence is commuted. In
1999 Jiang wrote two articles for a
Hong Kong magazine accusing
Bo Xilai, who at the time was governor of
Liaoning province, but is now China's
economic minister, of covering up
corruption.
(Reuters)
★
Conflict in Iraq: 6 members of the same family of 14 have been confirmed killed following a
U.S. airstrike in Northern
Iraq.
(BBC)
★
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
Israel Police prevents
Palestinians in
East Jerusalem from campaigning in the upcoming
Elections in the Palestinian National Authority.
(BBC)
★ Rescue workers are still battling to find survivors after the roof of an ice rink collapsed in
Bad Reichenhall, southern
Germany, leaving at least 10 people dead, some of them
children. It is thought many are still trapped under the rubble.
(BBC)
★ Bidding continues in an international auction for Canadian steel company
Dofasco Inc.,
Hamilton, Ont. -- the latest bid, C$4.9 billion, came Tuesday from German steelmaker
ThyssenKrupp AG.
(CBC Business News)
★ Four years after
defaulting on its
external debt,
Argentina pays its USD 9.57 billion debt with the
IMF.
(Reuters)
★
Jack Abramoff of the
Jack Abramoff lobbying and corruption scandal pleads guilty to federal conspiracy, fraud and tax evasion charges. According to NPR, this puts Abramoff on the prosecutor's side and he is expected to cooperate in the continuing investigation that could involve "up to 20 members of Congress"
(NPR). The court filing is available as a PDF here:
[2]
★
Mirant Corp.,
Atlanta, Georgia, a power generation company that filed for bankruptcy court protection in
July 2003, emerges from chapter 11 status after converting more than $6 billion of debt and liabilities into equity.
(company website)
===
4 January 2006 (Wednesday) ===
★
Turkey announces two confirmed human cases of the
avian influenza.
(BBC)
★ The
King of Saudi Arabia,
Abdullah al-Saud, offers to pay for repairs to the
Jama Masjid in
Delhi,
India. The King also offers to fund education in India.
(BBC)
★
Conflict in Iraq: At least 50 die following a series of insurgent attacks across
Iraq, including a
suicide bomb at a
Shia funeral which left 36 mourners dead.
(BBC)
★
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 77, suffers "
a significant stroke". He is currently "under
anaesthesia and receiving breathing assistance". Power is transferred to his deputy, Vice Minister
Ehud Olmert.
(CNN) (Yahoo!)
★
Dow Jones & Co., one of the world's most important financial publishers, announces its new CEO,
Richard Zannino, takes over from
Peter Kann. Since Mr. Zannino is not a reporter, this breaks a century-old tradition of keeping newsmen at the helm.
(New York Sun)
★ A leaked intelligence report states that
Iran has been "successfully scouring
Europe" for the equipment needed to create a
nuclear bomb, as well as parts for a
ballistic missile.
(The Guardian)
★ Fourteen people are killed, with many more feared dead, after a landslide destroys a village in
Java after
flash floods in the region. It is the second such incident in the region within a week.
(BBC)
★ Fourteen people are now confirmed dead in the
Bad Reichenhall ice rink roof collapse, with one person still trapped in the rubble.
(New York Times)
★
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict:
★
★
Israel shells eight roads in
Palestinian areas of the
Gaza Strip.
(IMEMC)
★
★ Seven
Qassam rockets are fired on civilian
Israeli targets by
Palestinian insurgents. Two rockets land near a gas station on a road leading to the
Israeli town of
Sderot, and another five land near
Kibbutz Zikim. There are no reports of injuries or damage.
(B92)
===
5 January 2006 (Thursday)===
★
Peru recalls
Carlos Urrutia, its
ambassador to
Venezuela, after
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez praises Peruvian presidential hopeful
Ollanta Humala for his left-leaning policies. A spokeswoman for the Peruvian
Foreign Ministry stated, "There are concerns of political meddling in Peru's electoral affairs and comments by President Chávez were out of place."
(Yahoo! News)
★ The leader of
Britain's Liberal Democrat Party,
Charles Kennedy, admits being treated for
alcohol-related problems for the last 18 months but has not drunk for the last two months. The revelation comes following mounting criticism of his leadership from party MPs. He calls
a party leadership election, in which he will stand.
(BBC)
★ At least 130 people have died following
insurgent attacks on the
Iraqi cities of
Kerbala and
Ramadi.
(BBC)
★ At least 76 people have died following the collapse of a five story hotel in
Mecca. The death toll is expected to rise. Most of the dead are foreign
Muslim pilgrims who had made their way there for the
Hajj.
(Forbes)
★
Hewlett-Packard, a computer manufacturing giant, and a
private equity firm, the
Blackstone Group, may bid for
Computer Sciences Corporation, according to anonymous sources cited by ''
The Wall Street Journal''.
(thestreet.com)
===
6 January 2006 (Friday)===
★
Janjaweed militants cross the
Sudanese border into
Chad and
attack the villages of Boroto, Ade, and Moudaina, killing nine and seriously wounding three others. Chad once again warns Sudan that it will retaliate for attacks by Janjaweed and
UFDC rebel attacks.
(Reuters)
★
2005 Kashmir earthquake:
SOS Children report
gastroenteritis,
pneumonia and
bronchitis rife in emergency camps as landslides block route to
Muzaffarabad. The organization now has a total of 106 children with missing parents in its care.
SOS
★ The
People's Republic of China announces that the last surviving member of the
Gang of Four,
Yao Wenyuan, died on
December 23,
2005.
(BBC)
★
Zapatistas, led by
Subcomandante Marcos, begin a six-month nationwide tour of
Mexico to unite social movements for positive change. The tour coincides with
presidential election campaigns. Marcos claims that the all the party candidates are liars and criminals who don't care about the Mexican people.
(Scotsman)
★ A third child from the same family in eastern
Turkey dies of
H5N1 avian flu. Hülya Koçyiğit, 11, was the sister of Mehmet Ali, 14, who died last weekend, and of Fatma, 15, who died on Thursday. She was the third human fatality outside
China and
South-East Asia. A six-year-old brother is also being treated for the same disease.
(Reuters) (Times)
★
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon successfully undergoes a third round of
surgery to correct a rise in
cranial pressure.
(AP)
★ The
Supreme Court of India denies access to the
Alang port to the
French warship
Clemenceau since it contains tonnes of
asbestos.
(BBC)
===
7 January 2006 (Saturday)===
★ Four suspected militants fatally shoot two border-
policemen in the back at a crowded weekend market in
Yala province,
Thailand, where the
South Thailand insurgency continues since an increase in violence in January 2001.
(The Nation)
★ The head of the
UN peacekeeping force in
Haiti, General
Urano Teixeira da Matta Bacellar, is found dead. UN officials believe his death to be suicide.
(BBC News)
★
Charles Kennedy, Leader of the
Liberal Democrats, the third-largest political party in the
United Kingdom, announces his resignation with immediate effect after unprecedented criticism from his party's MPs. This comes despite previous vows to stand in the
leadership election he declared two days earlier.
(BBC News)
★ Thirteen
Sri Lankan soldiers are killed when a boat manned by
Tamil Tiger rebels and filled with explosives rammed into a naval ship in the port city of
Trincomalee.
(CNN)
★ The
prime minister of Israel Ariel Sharon has been transferred to a radiography theater to undergo a
CT scan to determine the level of
pressure on his
brain.
(Ynetnews)
★ A
US military
helicopter UH-60 Blackhawk has crashed in northern
Iraq near
Talafar. All 12 persons on board have been killed.
(BBC)
★ The
president of Poland Lech Kaczyński performed a motion tabled by the
prime minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz and dismissed the minister of finance
Teresa Lubińska, nominating on her place
Zyta Gilowska and giving her a position of
deputy premier.
===
8 January 2006 (Sunday)===
★ An estimated two million
Muslims officially begin the annual pilgrimage, or
hajj, in
Mecca,
Saudi Arabia (CNN).
★
Singapore holds its largest civil
counter-terrorism exercise, codenamed
Exercise Northstar V, simulating bombing and chemical attacks at four
Mass Rapid Transit stations and a bus interchange. Thirteen MRT stations and part of
Toa Payoh Bus Interchange are closed for three hours, causing travel disruptions for over 15,000 commuters and triggering a response from some 2,000 personnel from 22
governmental organizations.
(CNA)
★ A strong
earthquake measuring 6.7 on the
moment magnitude scale hits
Greece at 13:34. The earthquake's
epicentre was in the sea region 25 km east of the island of
Kythira, about 200 km south of
Athens. Although it was felt as far as
Sicily, south
Italy,
Egypt, and
Amman in
Jordan, it was not disastrous due to its deep
hypocentre and the sea-bed epicentre. Little damage (mainly in Kythira) and few light injuries are reported.
(CNN.com) (USGS)
===
9 January 2006 (Monday)===
★
General Sir Michael Rose, former
United Nations commander in
Bosnia, has told the
BBC that
British Prime Minister Tony Blair should be "
impeached" over the
war in Iraq.
(BBC)
★
Ahmad Kazemi, the top commander of
Iran's
Revolutionary Guards ground forces, and ten others have been reportedly killed when their plane crashed in northwestern Iran.
(IRNA) (BBC)
★ The
Prime Minister of Israel Ariel Sharon has started breathing independently after doctors reduced the inflow of
anaesthetic drugs in an attempt to waken the prime minister from deep
sedation.
(Ynetnews)
★
U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was hospitalized when he complained of breathing trouble. He was later released from the hospital.
(AP via Yahoo!)
★
Howard Stern debuted on Sirius Satellite Radio, ending a nearly 30 year run on terrestrial radio.
★
The Phantom of the Opera surpassed
Cats as the longest running
Broadway musical with its 7,486th performance.
===
10 January 2006 (Tuesday)===
★ The defence lawyer in the
O'Connor - Keogh official secrets trial is shown the secret
Al Jazeera bombing memo and declares that it posed no threat to national security. He vows to have it made public by the court. The case will return to court on January 24.
(The Guardian) (San Francisco Chronicle)
★
Amnesty International claims torture and ill-treatment of terrorist suspects on the fourth anniversary of detainees being held without charge at
Camp Delta in
Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba.
(Forbes)
★
Japanese
whalers and anti-whaling environmental groups continue to clash in
Antarctic waters near
Australia, as calls for the
Australian Government to intervene intensify.
(ABC)
★
Ukraine's
parliament dismisses the
Cabinet over its
gas deal with
Russia.
(Yahoo!)
★
Iran's standoff from the
UN and the west deepens as the UN seals on the
Natanz nuclear processing plant are broken.
(BBC)
★
British Prime Minister Tony Blair sets out his
Respect agenda.
(BBC)
★ A fifteenth case of
H5N1 is reported in
Turkey. However, the
Turkish government declares that the virus is "under control".
(BBC)
★ The
Pakistani army announces that seven soldiers and fourteen suspected militants have been killed in fighting in the
Waziristan area.
(BBC)
===
11 January 2006 (Wednesday)===
★ The first ministerial meeting of the
Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate begins in
Sydney,
Australia.
(BBC)
★ A
knife-wielding man enters a
synagogue in
Moscow and stabs at least eight people.
(BBC)
★ In
Georgia,
Vladimir Arutinian is convicted of the attempted
assassination of
U.S. President George W. Bush and terrorist charges and sentenced with
life imprisonment.
(BBC)
===
12 January 2006 (Thursday)===
★ The foreign ministers of
Britain,
France, and
Germany declare that negotiations with
Iran over its
nuclear program have reached a "dead end." They recommend that Iran be referred to the
United Nations Security Council, where the nation may face
sanctions.
(ABC)
★
A stampede during the
Stoning the Devil ritual on the last day at the
Hajj in
Mina,
Saudi Arabia, kills at least 362
Muslim pilgrims. A similar crush claimed 244 pilgrims' lives at the same spot in 2004.
(BBC)
★
Mehmet Ali AÄŸca, who tried to assassinate
Pope John Paul II in 1981, is released from jail.
(BBC)
★ The
French warship
Clemenceau reaches
Egypt and is barred access to the
Suez Canal. Two
Greenpeace activists board the ship.
(BBC)
===
13 January 2006 (Friday)===
★ The
U.S. CIA attempts to kill
Ayman al-Zawahiri by
bombing Damadola,
Pakistan, a village near the
Afghanistan border. The attack kills at least 18 people: eight men, five women and five children. Anonymous U.S. government sources claim he was invited to a feast in the village, but did not attend.
(CNN)
★
Augustine Volcano in
Alaska has erupted five times in the past three days, the first eruptions in nearly two decades. The island is uninhabited.
(National Geographic)
★
Tyco International announces that it will split itself into three companies, spinning off Tyco Healthcare and Tyco Electronics.
(Tyco)
===
15 January 2006 (Sunday)===
★ President
Mwai Kibaki of
Kenya has declared the
ongoing drought a national disaster and has appealed for US$150 million to feed the hungry. 2.5 million people have been left close to starvation due to the lack of rains over the last three years and corrupt officials who steal food aid.
(Reuters)
★
Russia and
Ukraine are set to enter more diplomatic troubled waters over the alleged occupation of a
lighthouse in the
Black Sea.
(BBC)
★
Kim Jong-il, the leader of
North Korea, is alleged to have made a journey to China as part of a fact-finding mission in the region.
(BBC)
★ Doctors perform a
tracheotomy on
Ariel Sharon, the
Prime Minister of Israel, hoping this will help
his recovery from a recent
stroke.
(BBC)
★ The first round of voting in the
Presidential election in Finland was held with no conclusive victor.
Tarja Halonen and
Sauli Niinistö will continue to the second round which is held
29 January.
(BBC)
★
Michelle Bachelet is
elected the first female
President of Chile.
(BBC)
★ The
Stardust spacecraft has successfully landed in the
Dugway Proving Ground after collecting dust samples from the
comet Wild 2. It is the first time extra-terrestrial samples other than of the moon have been collected and the Stardust spacecraft is the fastest man-made object to re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.
(AP)
★ The
United Kingdom:
Tony Blair to grant new powers to spy on
Members of Parliament.
(Independent)
★ The
French warship
Clemenceau's transit through the
Suez Canal is approved by
Egyptian authorities. This decision is heavily criticized by
Greenpeace and other environmental groups.
(BBC)
★
Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry is killed and two Canadian soldiers critically injured by a bomb blast in
Afghanistan. He is the first Canadian diplomat to be killed on duty.
(CBC)
★ The ruling
emir of
Kuwait, Sheikh
Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, dies at age 79.
Kuwait's cabinet names crown prince Sheikh
Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah as the new emir.
(Al-Jazeera)
★ The Foreign Ministry of
Iran announced it will hold a conference to evaluate the validity of the
Holocaust, which
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recently referred to as a "myth".
(CBC)
===
16 January 2006 (Monday)===
★ Former
United States President Gerald Ford is hospitalized with
pneumonia.
(CNN)
★
Rizgar Mohammed Amin, the chief judge in the
Saddam Hussein trial, tenders his resignation, following criticism of his handling of the trial.
(Daily Times)
★ The
United Nations appeals for US$240 million of food aid for
West Africa to feed at least 10 million people affected by the food crisis, with
Niger being the worst-affected country.
(Reuters)
★ A
dockworkers'
strike in
Europe has thousands of workers off the job in protest over proposed liberalization of
European Union rules on port services. A demonstration outside the
European Parliament in
Strasbourg leaves twelve
French police officers injured.
(BBC)
★ Former
US Vice President Al Gore blasts current
President George W. Bush's policy of spying on American citizen conversations with suspected overseas terrorists, saying President Bush "repeatedly and persistently" broke the law in connection with the
NSA warrantless surveillance controversy, says the
United States Constitution is in danger.
(Houston Chronicle) (Text of Speech)
★ The
Premier of Western Australia,
Geoff Gallop, resigns his office after announcing he is suffering from
depression.
(ABC Australia)
★ At least 27 people are killed in two suicide bombings in
Afghanistan.
(CNN)
★
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is sworn in as
Liberia's new
president. She becomes
Africa's first female elected head of state.
(CNN)
★ Nine people die after jumping from a burning eight-story office building in the Russian city of
Vladivostok amid allegations of blocked emergency exits and fire code violations.
(CBC)
★
Iran bans
CNN from the country after a translator mistranslated a remark by
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in which he defended Iran's right to
nuclear energy. The comment was translated as the right to construct
nuclear weapons.
(ABC News)
★
Iraq's electoral commission rules Monday that more than 99 percent of the ballots from the
Dec. 15 parliamentary elections are valid, opening the way for a new government to start coming together.
(CBS News)
===
17 January 2006 (Tuesday)===
★ The
U.S. Supreme Court rules in ''
Gonzales v. Oregon'' by a 6-3 vote that
Oregon's "
Death with Dignity Act" providing for
physician-assisted suicide is consistent with the federal
Controlled Substances Act.
(BBC)
★ Kidnappers of journalist
Jill Carroll demand that the United States release all female Iraqi prisoners within 72 hours.
(CNN)
★ Two
Jordanian peacekeepers, serving as part of the
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, have been killed by gunfire in
Port-au-Prince.
(Reuters)
★ In
Côte d'Ivoire, supporters of President
Laurent Gbagbo attack
United Nations peacekeepers after the
Ivorian Popular Front withdraws from the
Ivorian Civil War peace process.
(BBC)
★
South Korean scientist
Hwang Woo-suk has been offered a job at
Clonaid studying human embryonic stem cell lines. Clonaid is a subsidiary of the
cult known as the
Raelians, who believe that cloning is the first step toward
immortality.
(Reuters)
★ A draft of the new version (3) of the
GNU General Public License is released. The "new" version has provisions blocking GPL code from being used in, or "secured" by,
digital rights management schemes. The "
Freeness" provisions also restricts the
patent rights coders can claim in their GPL-licensed programs.
(wired) (text of draft)
★ An original manuscript of the
Chán Buddhist ''
Wu Men Guan'' (''Mumonkan'') dated to
1246 is exhibited online by the
i4uuu museum.
(eMediaWire)
★
Taiwanese Premier Frank Hsieh announces his resignation following the defeat of the
Democratic Progressive Party in
recent elections.
(BBC)
★
Japanese company
Huser's president
Susumu Ojima receives a
summons of a
witness by the
Diet because of suspicions etc that he instructed one-class authorized architect
Hidetsugu Aneha to reduce quantity of
reinforced concrete.
(The Japan Times Online)
===
18 January 2006 (Wednesday)===
★
Human Rights Watch in its annual report strongly condemns the
United States, saying "it became disturbingly clear that the abuse of detainees had become a deliberate, central part of the Bush administration's strategy of interrogating terrorist suspects".
(CBC) (
BBC News) (
Human Rights Watch press info)
★ The
Tokyo Stock Exchange closes 20 minutes early due to a flood of sell orders overwhelming the capacity of its trading system.
(AP/Yahoo!News)
★
Bangladeshi
UN peacekeepers are attacked by
Laurent Gbagbo's "
Young Patriots" in
Côte d'Ivoire. At least three people have been killed, and the
UN has warned that the country is sliding towards
war.
(BBC)
★
China has recorded its sixth death from the
avian flu virus, according to a report on the Chinese Health Ministry's Web site.
(CNN)
★
North Korean leader
Kim Jong-il says he is committed to a peaceful resolution of the standoff over his country's nuclear ambitions.
(CBS)
★ A building collapses on the outskirts of
New Delhi on Wednesday, trapping at least 15 people in the rubble.
(CNN)
★ Suspected
Tamil Tiger rebels have ambushed a navy bus in
Sri Lanka's northeast, injuring six sailors and a civilian.
(CBC)
★ Two people who conspired to extort money from
Wendy's by planting a severed finger in a bowl of chili and then suing the restaurant are sentenced to about ten years each in prison.
(CTV)
===
19 January 2006 (Thursday)===
★
Al Jazeera airs an
audiotape from
Osama bin Laden saying
al-Qaeda is making preparations for attacks in the
United States but offering a "long-term truce" to rebuild
Iraq and
Afghanistan.
(MSNBC)(BBC)
★
Iran warns of a world
oil crisis if sanctions are imposed over its nuclear program even as the
United States and
Europe struggle to get support for
UN Security Council action.
(AFP)
★ President
Jacques Chirac warns that
France could respond with
nuclear weapons against any
State-sponsored terrorism attack.
(ABC News) (BBC)
★ Two
suicide bombings in the
Iraqi
capital,
Baghdad, leave at least 22 people dead and 26 wounded.
(BBC)
★
Italy will conclude its mission in
Iraq by the end of the year, in the first clear timetable for
Rome to withdraw its troops, says Defense Minister
Antonio Martino.
(ABC)
★ The
United States' largest
independent film festival, the
Sundance Film Festival, begins in
Salt Lake City and
Park City,
Utah. This year's entries include documentaries about prominent politicians
Al Gore and
Ralph Nader.
(Reuters)
★
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: At least 32 people are injured, including one seriously, when a
Palestinian suicide bomber detonates himself at a food stand near
Tel Aviv's central bus station.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad's
al-Quds brigades claims responsibility for the attack. It's the first terrorist attack of the year in
Israel.
(YNETnews)
★
Isabelle Dinoire, the world's first
face transplant recipient, is using her new lips to take up smoking again, which doctors fear could interfere with her healing and raise the risk of tissue rejection.
(CTV)
★ A
Slovak Antonov An-24 military aircraft carrying troops back from
Kosovo crashes into a mountainside in northeastern
Hungary, killing 42 people. Only one person survived.
(CNN)
★ At least thirty-one people have died during a four-day cold snap in
Russia where
temperatures have plunged to as low as -42°
C (-44°
F).
(CBC)
★ A leaked memo from the
United Kingdom's
Foreign Office reveals that that the British government had a strategy aimed at suppressing a debate about the US practice of transporting detainees to secret centres where they are at risk of being tortured.
(Guardian Unlimited).
★
NASA Pluto probe ''
New Horizons ''successfully launches at 14:00 EST.
(NASA) (BBC)
★ In
Azerbaijan, two students (Turan Aliev from
Baku State University and Namik Feiziev of
Azerbaijan State Pedagogical University) are readmitted and end their 22-day
hunger strike, started in protest at their expulsion which they claim resulted from their political activities.
(IWPR)
===
20 January 2006 (Friday)===
★ At 4 o'clock
UTC NASA's
Pluto probe ''
New Horizons'' crossed the orbit of the
Moon, eight hours and thirty five minutes after launch. This is a new Earth-to-Moon-distance flight record.
★ Three former workers at the
Davis-Besse nuclear power plant in Ohio are indicted for repeatedly falsifying inspection reports and other information to the US
Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The plant's owner,
FirstEnergy Corporation, accepts a plea bargain and $28 million in fines in lieu of criminal prosecution.
(Toledo Blade)
★
Archeologists digging under the
Roman Forum, Rome, Italy, discover a tomb estimated at 3000 years old, predating the creation of the Forum by several centuries.
(USA Today)
★
Canadian soldiers in
Afghanistan have defused a huge car bomb found not far from their base near
Kandahar. The discovery comes just days after a suicide bomber killed
Canadian diplomat Glyn Berry and seriously wounded three soldiers travelling with him.
(CBC)
★ Embroiled in a
nuclear standoff with the West,
Iran says it is moving funds out of
Europe to shield them from possible
U.N. sanctions.
(Reuters)
★
Iraq's election commission says that an alliance of
Shiite religious parties, the
United Iraqi Alliance, has won the most seats in Iraq's new
National Assembly after the
December 2005 legislative elections .
(CBS)
★ At least 52 people including five children are killed after an overcrowded bus plunges down a deep gorge in
Indian Kashmir.
(CBC)
★
Israel says it has proof that
Iran financed the bombing of a fast-food restaurant in
Tel Aviv, and that
Syria carried it out.
(ABC)
★ Rescue teams search for two
West Virginia miners missing after a coal mine fire.
(ABC)
★
Japan has halted the import of U.S. beef after an animal spine was found in a beef shipment at
Tokyo International Airport. A ban has now been reinstated.
(CNN)
★
Turkish police are reported to have taken into custody,
Mehmet Ali AÄŸca, the man who shot
Pope John Paul II in
1981 after an appeals court ordered his return to prison to serve more time for killing a journalist.
(CNN)
★ A
whale, identified as a 5 metre (17') long Northern
Bottlenose whale, is observed in the
River Thames in Central
London passing upstream of the
Houses of Parliament. The "
River Thames whale" is believed to have passed through the
Thames Barrier about 1515 UTC on Thursday afternoon. Attempts are being made to guide it back to the Thames estuary, where a second whale has been sighted off
Southend on Sea.
(BBC),
(Sky News)
★ Protests by the pro-government
Young Patriots in
Côte d'Ivoire end after their leader,
Charles Blé Goudé, tells them to "go home and clean up the streets".
(BBC)
===
21 January 2006 (Saturday)===
★ Kosovo President
Ibrahim Rugova dies at 61, after a
lung cancer. He was the first President of Kosovo, and the leader of the
Democratic League of Kosove
★ The Russian
choreographer Igor Moiseyev, who founded the genre of balletic
folk dance back in the
1930s, celebrates his
centenary with a flamboyant show in the
Moscow Kremlin Palace of Congresses.
(New York Times)
★ Two miners, trapped after a coal mine fire on Thursday in
Melville, West Virginia, are found dead.
(CNN)
★ The "
River Thames whale" dies during a rescue attempt.
(BBC)
★ The British government confirms and defends the practice of holding DNA samples of minors on the
UK National DNA Database.
(BBC)
===
22 January 2006 (Sunday)===
★
British diplomats are accused of
spying on
Russia using a fake
rock.
(BBC)
★
Evo Morales is inaugurated as
President of
Bolivia, becoming the country's first
indigenous American president.
(ABC News)
★ Fears of
sabotage ensue after explosions of two gas pipelines in Russia's
North Ossetian Republic suspend gas supply to
Georgia and
Armenia.
(BBC)
★
Kobe Bryant scores 81 points against the Toronto Raptors, the second highest in
NBA history, next to
Wilt Chamberlain's 100
===
23 January 2006 (Monday)===
★ In the ongoing dispute between the
United States and Venezuela, the US has tried to veto a sale of
Embraer airplanes to
Venezuela.
Brazilian foreign minister
Celso Amorim branded the US attempted veto as "indefensible nonsense". The US recently failed to block a large sale of Spanish military equipment to Venezuela.
(El Universal),
(Spain Herald).
★ In the
Canadian federal election, the
Conservatives win a
plurality of seats in the
House of Commons to form a
minority government.
Stephen Harper is to become the next
Prime Minister.
(Globe and Mail)
★ An
archeological expedition from
Johns Hopkins University uncovers a statue of Queen
Tiye, wife of
Pharaoh Amenhotep III and mother of
Akhenaten, at the temple complex at
Karnak.
(Al-Jazeera)
★
Kuwait emir Sheikh Saad Al-Abdullah Al-Salim Al-Sabah has agreed to abdicate his position.
(Al-Jazeera)
★ After its brakes fail, a train crashes near
BioÄe, a village nine miles northeast of
Podgorica in
Montenegro, killing at least 39 and injuring more than 130 people, in the country's
worst train disaster.
(BBC News)
★ Another case of
mad cow disease has been confirmed in
Canada but officials don't expect international borders to close to Canadian beef as a result.
(CBC)
★
United Nations says eight
Guatemalan
special forces soldiers deployed as
U.N. peacekeepers in eastern
DR Congo were killed and five wounded in a battle with
Ugandan
LRA rebels.
(Reuters)
★
Ford Motor Company announces plans to close 14
plants and cut up to 30,000
jobs (25% of its workforce) by 2012.
(Detroit News)
★ A five-story building in
Nairobi,
Kenya, collapses and kills at least eight people, burying dozens more. Rescuers use their bare hands to dig through the rubble.
(Sky News) (BBC) (CTV)
★
Azerbaijan has started supplying
Russian
natural gas to
Georgia, the Georgian gas company says, helping compensate for a fuel cutoff caused by explosions in southern Russian pipelines that brought a new energy crisis to the region this weekend.
(International Herald Tribune) (CBC)
★ The
U.S. Supreme Court rejects an appeal from
Research In Motion Ltd. which had asked it to reverse a lower-court ruling that found its
BlackBerry wireless email device in violation of patents held by
NTP, Inc., a Virginia patent-holding firm. The case now moves to a
federal district court in Virginia, which will decide whether to reinstate an injunction against the U.S. sale of the popular BlackBerries.
(MarketWatch)
===
24 January 2006 (Tuesday)===
★ A
US federal judge issues a
summary judgement against
Christopher William Smith and awards
AOL US$5.3 million in damages and US$287,000 in legal fees, after Smith refused to participate in the lawsuit filed against him by AOL under the
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. Smith is accused of sending millions of
spam e-mails to AOL customers. (
''The Seattle Post-Intelligencer'')
★
Venezuela buys a further
US$312 million of
Argentina's national debt, adding to the
US$1 billion already purchased. The government of
Hugo Chávez says that the scheme will further
South American integration.
(Reuters)(Bloomberg)
★
Miyeegombyn Enkhbold is chosen as the new
Prime Minister of
Mongolia by the
State Great Khural.
(BBC)
★ Two mergers are announced in the
American entertainment industry:
Disney and
Pixar Animation Studios will merge in a
US$7.4 billion deal.
(Story from E! Online via Yahoo.com) And
CBS Corporation and
Warner Bros. announce they will merge
UPN and
The WB television networks into a new network called '
The CW'' in fall 2006.
(AP/Yahoo!)
★ A bomb in the southern
Iranian city of
Ahvaz kills six and injures up to 40.
Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was due to have visited the city today, however the trip was called off at the last minute.
Lebanon's
al-Manar television said the president had called off his trip after a security tip-off. Local MP
Nezam Molla-Hoveyzeh accused
Britain of being behind the attack.
(Reuters)(BBC)
★
★ Later, US President
George Bush warns
Iran over threat of "retaliation" against
Israel.
Moqtada Sadr has vowed to defend Iran.
(Turkish Weekly),
(LKBN ANTARA)
★ Defeated
Canadian prime minister Paul Martin announces he will resign as leader of the
Liberal Party.
(CBC)
★
Opera web browser releases free "mini"
mobile phone browser.
(Red Herring),
(InformationWeek)
★
Web sites encouraged to support
IE rivals, as
Firefox 1.5 passes the 20 million downloads mark. Firefox browser has 11
percent of the
UK market.
(VNUNet),
(iT News)
===
25 January 2006 (Wednesday)===
★
Lucia Pinochet, daughter of former
Chilean
dictator Augusto Pinochet, asks for
political asylum in the
United States following her arrest at
Washington Dulles International Airport on a Chilean
arrest warrant for
tax evasion.
(''Miami Herald'')
★ A study in the
New England Journal of Medicine reveals that
Trasylol, a drug marketed by
Bayer, designed to prevent excessive blood loss during heart surgery, doubles the risk of
kidney failure and
stroke.
(Reuters)
★ An international team of
astronomers discovers the most earth-like
exoplanet found thus far. The planet,
OGLE-2005-BLG-390Lb, is about 25,000
light years away, close to the centre of the
Milky Way.
(Nature).
★
Microsoft, in an effort to resolve a controversy with the
antitrust authorities of the
European Community, announced that it will license some of its source code to rivals.
(c|net news).
★
Google's launch of a new, self-censored search engine in
China is a "black day" for freedom of expression, says leading international media watchdog
Reporters without Borders.
(BBC)
★
Ryanair,
Europe's largest
low-cost carrier, and the world's most profitable
airline, announces that it intends to charge up to €7 per bag checked in by customers. In return, the airline fares will drop by 9%.
(Ryanair press release)
★
Uzbekistan joins the
Eurasian Economic Community.
(Interfax)
★ ''
Deus Caritas Est'' (
Latin: "God is love"), the first
encyclical of
Pope Benedict XVI, is published
(BBC)
★
2006 Palestinian elections: Palestinians prepare for the first elections to the
PLC in ten years.
(BBC)
===
26 January 2006 (Thursday)===
★
Islamist party
Hamas' landslide victory in
Palestinian elections ends four decades of rule by the
Fatah party.
Hamas secures 76 seats in the 132-member legislature through
parliamentary elections.
Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei announces he will resign and Fatah declares it will not join a Hamas-led coalition, although Palestinian President
Mahmoud Abbas plans to continue negotiations with
Israel through the
Palestine Liberation Organization.
(BBC) (Haaretz)
★
Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran reacts sharply to
US Ambassador
David Mulford's warning over the future of the Indo-US nuclear deal, saying on Thursday that it was "inappropriate" and not conducive to good relations between the two countries.
(Express India)
★ One day after
US ambassador to
Mexico Tony Garza claimed that Mexican soldiers had helped
drug smugglers to escape pursuit by
Texas state police on US soil near
El Paso, Texas, Mexican
Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Ernesto Derbez suggested that the people involved may have been US soldiers wearing the
uniforms of Mexican military.
(''Forbes'')
★
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf rejects
US objections to a proposed
Iran-
Pakistan-
India pipeline for
natural gas saying "It is in our economic interest. If somebody wants to stop us they should compensate us ... But at the moment we are going ahead". Musharraf also repeats his condemnation of the
recent U.S. air strike in northern Pakistan which killed 18 people, including women and children.
(VOA News)
★
Liberal Democrat MEP for
London,
Sarah Ludford, who is leading a
European Parliament investigation into the
U.S. policy of "
extraordinary rendition", says she may invite
Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney,
United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld or
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify.
(Irish Independent Newspaper)
★ In the long running dispute over
Iran's nuclear program, the ambassador of the
United States to
India,
David Mulford, has warned India to back the US plan to refer Iran to the
United Nations Security Council or face cancellation of a US-India nuclear deal.
(Financial Times) India's foreign ministry calls the comments inapproapiate and summons the ambassador to
Delhi for an explanation
(BBC news). The Foreign Ministry of China says "We oppose impulsively using sanctions or threats of sanctions to solve problems" and also indicates that they would support
Russian efforts to resolve the dispute.
(Reuters)
★
Republic Day celebrations in
India.
Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud is in India as chief guest for the Republic Day celebration.
(NDTV)
★
Interpol issues
red notices against
Pakistan ex-Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari.
(BBC)
★
Saudi Arabia recalled their envoy from
Denmark after
Muhammad Drawings controversy, and has initiated a boycott of Danish products.
(BBC)
===
27 January 2006 (Friday)===
★
French President Jacques Chirac is successfully
hoaxed by a Canadian
DJ pretending to be
Stephen Harper.
(CNN)
★
European leaders remember the
Holocaust, with the 61st anniversary of the liberation of the
Auschwitz death camp.
(Yahoo!)
★ A 7.7 magnitude
earthquake strikes the
Banda Sea of eastern
Indonesia.
(USGS)
★ The
world honours
Mozart on his 250th
birthday anniversary.
(CTV)
★
President Mikhail Saakashvili of
Georgia pledges to end his country's energy crisis by importing
Iranian
natural gas. Starting Monday, Georgia will import 2 million m³ of gas a day at $120/m³, $10 more than for
Russian gas. Georgia's supply of Russian gas has been interrupted since Sunday due to
pipeline explosions. Saakashvili has accused
Moscow of sabotage for political gain.
(RIA Novosti)
===
28 January 2006 (Saturday)===
★
Venezuelan
President Hugo Chávez threatens to jail any
United States spies caught gathering information about Venezuela.
(BBC)
★
The roof of a trade-exhibition hall in southern
Poland collapses with several hundred people inside, trapping many beneath the wreckage, 62 people are killed and over 160 injured. Poland declares a day of national mourning.
(CNN)
===
29 January 2006 (Sunday)===
★
Libya closes its
embassy in
Denmark over the
Muhammad Drawings controversy.
(BBC)
★
Al-Jazeera releases two separate videos, one of
Ayman al-Zawahiri condemning the
bombing of Damadola and the other of
Jill Carroll again pleading for the release of female prisoners so her life will be spared.
(Yahoo!),
(Reuters)
★
ABC World News Tonight co-anchor
Bob Woodruff and
cameraman Doug Vogt are seriously injured by an
improvised explosive device near
Taji,
Iraq.
(ABC News)
★
Tarja Halonen is re-elected in the second round of the
Finnish presidential election with 51.8% of the votes, defeating the other candidate
Sauli Niinistö.
(Helsingin Sanomat)
★ An explosion in a
firecracker warehouse kills 16 people in
Henan on
Chinese New Year.
(Reuters)
★
Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah is confirmed as the new
emir of Kuwait, ending a two-week leadership crisis.
(BBC)
===
30 January 2006 (Monday)===
★
China and
Russia agree to refer
Iran to the
United Nations Security Council for
its nuclear program in March of 2006.
(Reuters)
★ In the
United Kingdom, the
High Court has ordered 10
Internet service providers to hand over the details of 150 UK customers accused of illegally
sharing software.
(BBC)
===
31 January 2006 (Tuesday)===
★
U.S. President George W. Bush delivers
the State of the Union Address to a
joint session of the U.S. Congress (the
House of Representatives and the
Senate).
★
★ Moments before the address began,
anti-war protester Cindy Sheehan is arrested in the
U.S. Capitol Building for refusing to cover up a t-shirt she was wearing to protest the
war and
occupation of Iraq.
(CNN)
★
★ Also directed out of the
U.S. Capitol Building was Beverly Young, wife of GOP congressman
Bill Young, for wearing a t-shirt that read "Support the Troops: Defending Our Freedom"
(ABC).
★
Iran's nuclear program
★
★
Iran reacts with anger to its referral to the
U.N. Security Council, saying diplomatic avenues have been closed.
(CNN)
★
★ The
International Atomic Energy Agency has announced it has evidence within its report for the Thursday meeting that Iran obtained documents showing how to mold highly enriched grade uranium into the core of warheads.
(Reuters)
★ In
Iraq, the
British Armed Forces records its 100th military death.
(ABC)
★ In the
United States, a female ex-postal worker opens fire in a mail-processing plant, killing six people and critically wounding another before committing suicide in what's believed to be the deadliest workplace shooting ever carried out by a woman in
U.S. history.
(CNN)
★
United States Supreme Court nominee
Samuel Alito is confirmed by the
United States Senate and sworn in.
★
Russian
President Vladimir Putin has voiced renewed opposition to the
U.S. decision to abandon the 30 year old
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in favour of
missile defence saying it would damage world security. He also claimed that Russia has developed a new category of
hypersonic intercontinental missile which can zig-zag in flight and is immune to any missile defense system.
(Washington Post)
★ Nominations for the
78th Academy Awards were announced in
Beverly Hills, California, by Academy President
Sid Ganis and actress
Mira Sorvino. (
CNN)
★
Coretta Scott King, widow of assassinated civil rights leader
Martin Luther King, Jr, dies at age 78.
(MSNBC)
★ A former
US Marine, Jim Massey, has claimed on the
Irish radio station
Live 95FM that the US military has been illegally shipping
depleted uranium through
Shannon Airport for use in
Iraq.
(UTV) (The Limerick Blogger)(Live 95FM) If true, this would be a major breach of
Irish neutrality and Irish-US agreements on the use of Shannon. The airport's use by the US military is already highly controversial, in part due to the connection with
CIA captives.
(IOL.ie)
★
U.S. oil company
ExxonMobil announced profits for 2005 of $36.1 billion, a record amount in US corporate history. In anticipation of a public backlash, the company simultaneously posted newspaper advertisements in the US to explain its success.
(Seattle Times)
★ A tourist coach crash in
Egypt on the highway between
Hurghada and
Luxor kills 14 and injures another 30 people. All casualties are from
Hong Kong and were joining Jetour Holidays tours.
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