March 2006

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Other events in March 2006
World - Sci-Tech - Sports - Video games - Wikinews
Africa - Australia and New Zealand - Britain and Ireland - India - Thailand -
2006 developments by topic Monthly events, 2006

Deaths

1: Harry Browne 1: Peter Osgood 3: William Herskovic 5: Milan Babic 6: Kirby Puckett 6: Dana Reeve 7: Gordon Parks 7: Ali Farka Touré 10: Tom Fox 10: John Profumo 11: Bernie Geoffrion 11: Slobodan Miloševic 13: Maureen Stapleton 13: Jimmy Johnstone 14: Lennart Meri 17: Ray Meyer 17: Oleg Cassini 19: Mohammad Ali (actor) 23: Sarah Caldwell 25: Richard Fleischer 25: Buck Owens 26: Paul Dana 27: Dan Curtis 27: Lyn Nofziger 27: Stanislaw Lem 28: Pro Hart 28: Caspar Weinberger 29: Henry Farrell

Events

Ongoing Abramoff scandal Ariel Sharon illness Avian influenza (H5N1) outbreak Black sites scandal CIA leak grand jury investigation Formation of a new Iraqi government Horn of Africa food crisis Iran's nuclear program Labor protests in France Liberal leadership race in Canada Malawi food crisis Montenegrin independence campaign Muhammad cartoons controversy NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament North Indian cyclone season Pacific typhoon season Southern Hemisphere cyclone season Southern Leyte mudslide Recent 78th Academy Awards XVIII Commonwealth Games Malaysian Baldgate scandal NSA Spying Controversy Severe Tropical Cyclone Larry

Ongoing armed conflicts
Acholiland insurgency Arab-Israeli conflict (Al-Aqsa Intifada) Darfur conflict in Sudan Iraq War Ituri conflict in the DR Congo Ivorian Civil War Nepal Civil War Second Chechen War South Thailand insurgency

Elections
Results - March 28: Israel, legislature 26: Ukraine, Verkhovna Rada 19: Belarus, Presidential 19: Benin, Presidential 18: South Australia, legislative election 18: Tasmania, legislative election 12: Colombian legislative elections 12: El Salvadoran legislative elections 11: Malta, Local Council Elections 6: Netherlands, municipal 1: South Africa, municipal

Trials

Ongoing Chile: Alberto Fujimori (extradition process) Chile: Augusto Pinochet Ethiopia: 111 defendants, including leaders of the CUD and journalists, for charges related to the 2005 elections. Iraq: Iraqi Special Tribunal Saddam Hussein, among others Netherlands: ICTY Russia: Nur-Pashi Kulayev South Africa: Jacob Zuma UK: Leo O'Connor & David Keogh U.S.: Brian Nichols U.S.: Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling U.S.: Tom DeLay U.S.: Zacarias Moussaoui

Events

1 March 2006 (Wednesday)

• Fijian Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase announces that the 2006 Fiji general elections will be held in the second week of May 2006 from the 6th to the 13th. (Radio New Zealand)
• A member of the board of directors of major German steel manufacturing company ThyssenKrupp AG says the company is "examining all its options," and may not complete its proposed acquisition of Canadian steel company Dofasco. (MSN Money)
• A video obtained by the Associated Press shows U.S. President George W. Bush being warned that the levees in New Orleans could break one day before Hurricane Katrina hit. (MSNBC.com)

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 Marriot 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)

• The central Papeete power station is damaged by a fire, resulting in limited power for some areas of Tahiti for a couple of weeks.(Pacific Magazine)
• Anti-war campaigners criticised British Prime Minister Tony Blair after he suggested his decision to go to war in Iraq would ultimately be judged by God. [1]
• British Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell splits from her husband, David Mills' following allegations of an alleged acceptance of money from Silvio Berlusconi. [2]
• A new species of shark, Mustelus hacat, is discovered in Mexico's Sea of Cortez, bringing the number of Mustelus species found in the eastern North Pacific to five.
• The Deep Space Network tries one final contact attempt to Pioneer 10. [3]

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 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)

7 March 2006 (Tuesday)

• The Dutch Labour party gains more than five hundred seats in the country's municipal election. (Financial Times)
• Fifteen people die and many others are injured in three blasts throughout Varanasi, India. (CNN)
• Kizza Besigye, formerly opposition presidential candidate in the recent Ugandan elections, is cleared of rape charges.(BBC)
• Israel's defense minister Shaul Mofaz says that the Hamas PNA prime minister-designate, Ismail Haniyeh, may be subject to an Israeli targeted killing if Hamas resumes attacks against Israel. (AP)
• British Lieutenant General Nick Houghton announces that the UK's 8,000 soldiers in Iraq could begin leaving the country within weeks. Most would be home by 2008, he says. (Guardian Unlimited)
• Anibal Ibarra, former mayor of Buenos Aires is removed from office over allegations of poor government safety regulation in last year's club fire. (The Mercury News)

8 March 2006 (Wednesday)

• The world's biggest Expo on information technology, CeBIT, opens in Hanover, Germany. (news.com)
• Slovenia asks to join the Euro monetary union. (Business week)
• The United States House Appropriations Committee votes to block the Bush administration's plan for Dubai Ports World to take over operations at six major U.S. ports. (Houston Chronicle)
• The Government of Chad renews accusations of Sudanese support for attacks by the UFDC into eastern Chad, despite the recent signing of the Tripoli Accord and the successful formation of the ministerial committee. Sudan has accused Chad of supporting ARFWS rebels in the past, and Chad is believed to have stepped up support in light of recent attacks. (AlertNet)
• The Channel Island of Sark votes to maintain its feudal system of governance (BBC)
• Iran threatens 'harm and pain' against the United States for its role in putting Iran before the United Nations Security Council. (Channel 4 News)
• The European Union announces that it has lifted a worldwide ban on the export of British beef introduced in 1996 to prevent the spread of BSE (Mad Cow Disease). (BBC)
• An Argentine military aircraft crashes after take off from El Alto International Airport in La Paz, Bolivia, killing all six people on board. The aircraft was a Learjet 35A. (planecrashinfo.com)

9 March 2006 (Thursday)

• Astronomers announce that the Cassini-Huygens probe has detected possible geysers of water on Saturn's moon Enceladus, perhaps the first example of naturally-occurring liquid water beyond Earth. (AP) (JPL)
• United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan launches the Central Emergency Response Fund to provide aid to regions of Africa currently facing starvation.(BBC)
• The Sablé-sur-Sarthe hostage crisis in France ends peacefully with no casualties. The gunman had suffered from depression. (ABC)
• The notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq is to close and its prisoners to be housed elsewhere, the U.S. military has said. (Channel 4 News)

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)

• The former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milošević has been found dead in his prison cell in The Hague, Netherlands. (CNN) (Reuters) (BBC) (Times)
• Michelle Bachelet takes office as the first female President of Chile. (BBC) (CBC) (VOA) (CNN)
• You're Beautiful by James Blunt reaches Number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 Chart, becoming the first British artist to do so since Elton John's