News in Review

This started out as an experiment.
I will gather the February news daily from the internet or newspaper websites, I said to myself. Some monthy publications even use it as their editorial.
It’s a chance to reflect on the events, be they world or local, of up to 31 days.
It’s another chance to use hind-sight.

But as I trudged through the days, I realised that I was only really including the news that interested me personally. Or, maybe I was avoiding some topics completely because they were far too depressing or just plain dull. I was definitely focusing on certain pieces of news because I thought that they would arouse more moral interest. Whatever my motivations, sub-conscious or manipulative, here is the Febraury 2006 News in review.

If you would like to review the news of a particular topic or using a particular source or several sources comparitively during a specific month, please write to:
submissions@veritymagazine.com

February Sources
Googlenews/ Wiki-news/ NewYork Times/The Guardian/ BBCNews.com/ HarretzDaily/planetsave.com/ Liberation.fr

I used the Timeline about the muslim cartoon row from this location:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4688602.stm

February 1st
- France Soir publish Danish cartoons
-Jewish Settlers build houses on a west Bank hilltop without permission.Israeli Police ordered to tear them down.The civil clash results in 200 injuries.
- University of Queensland scientists are shocked by the Great Barrier reef's condition and are concerned the entire reef may be at risk of destruction from global warming after one of Australia’s hottest summers.

February 2nd
- More European papers print the infamous cartoons and defy protest
- Announcement by US scientists that they have engineered a vaccine that protects mice from the sort of Bird Flu strains that killed people in Turkey.
-New York City has decided to cut whole milk from the school menu as a result of Obesity and diabetic threats.Dairy organisations urge them to keep on low fat sweetened milks.

February 3rd
- Hundreds dead after an Egyptian ferry carrying about 1,400 people sinks in the Red Sea.

February 4th
- Bill Gates pledges to donate $600 million to Teburculosis partnership
- Syrians attack Danish and Norwegian embassies in Damascus
- At least 79 people, mostly women, are trampled to death and 290 more injured in a stampede outside the Ultra Stadium in Pasig City in Manila, the stampede was triggered when someone shouted a bomb threat.

February 5th
- Afghgans Protest and Lebanese demonstrators set the Danish embassy in Beirut on fire.
- Lebanese Interior Minister Hassan Sabeh resigns because he does not want to order fire on his own people

February 6th
- At least five people are killed in Afghanistan, and a teenage boy dies after protesters attack police in Somalia
- Pretend Suicide Bomber protester Omar Khayam apologises for offending families of 7/7 in London
- First woman ever to have a Face transplant speaks at a Press conference in France

February 7th
- Pretend Suicide Bomber Protester, who was already on probabtion, arrested in London.
- English Arch-Bishop of Canterbury declares cartoons Racist but that Free speech means nothing is sacred
- Uk troops rushed to riot in Afghanistan , 5 people die
- Several hundred Iranians attack the Danish embassy in Tehran as the country announces it is cutting all trade ties with Denmark.
- Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, claims cartoon stunt was an Israeli conspiracy motivated by anger over Hamas' win in the Palestinian elections.
- Stephen Harper is sworn in as the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada .
- In the United States , Pittsburgh Steelers defeat the Seattle Seahawks by a score of 21-10 in Super Bowl XL
- Riots start in Egypt over the sinking of the al-Salam Boccaccio 98. Crowds ransack the office of the ship's owner.
- The International Atomic Energy Agency votes to report Iran to the Security Council over its nuclear program .
- Announced that Pop superstar Michael Jackson has been asked by the Roman Catholic Church to set the prayers of the late Pope John Paul II to music.

February 8th
- Irish rock group U2 storm US Grammys
- Pete Doherty, the lead singer of Babyshambles, was released from prison after 13 nights on remand. After pleading guilty to seven counts of possessing drugs, including crack cocaine and heroin, he was given a 12-month community sentence and ordered to undertake non-residential drug rehabilitation and be tested every month

February 9th
- American presidentential budget cuts key funding for endangered species and wildlife protection programs.The administration seeks 9.2 million dollars in additional funds to clear backlog of oil and gas drilling permit applications.

February 10th
- In England Keith Lamb, who spiked his colleague's cola drink with anti-freeze leaving him blind and deaf has been jailed for 15 months at the Sheffield Crown Court - Mr. Lamb said he had spiked the drink to teach his colleague Martin Bingley "a lesson" for taking his drink without asking.
- The 20th Winter Olympics, which will run from February 10 to 26 got under way on Friday with a breath-taking opening ceremony in Turin.

February 11th
- Thousands of Muslims stage a peaceful demonstration in London's Trafalgar Square calling for unity against Islamophobia disassociating themselves from a 'minority of extremists'.
- United States Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shoots and injures Harry Whittington while hunting in Corpus Christi, Texas.

February 12th
- Three British soldiers arrested over "abuse video" showing troops abusing Iraqi civilians in 2004, images of which were published by British newspaper the News of the World. Provincial Council in Basra suspends relations with British forces over the video.
- Discovery of H5N1 strain of bird flu virus in Italy.

February 13th
- An amendment made to the UK ID cards bill in January 2006, which would have forced the government to carry out a cost report before introducing identity cards, is overturned by MP's. The Id cards, which will show the bearer's name, age, sex etc, will also contain a micro-chip, which will hold bio-metric information unique to the individual such as fingerprints or eye-scans.

February 14th
- Saddam Hussein announces that he and his seven co-accused have been on hunger strike for three days in protest at their treatment in Baghdad. They deny charges over a massacre of 148 people in Dujail in 1982.
- A number of airlines including Lufthansa, British Airways, and Air France KLM are investigated as part of a European and US cartel probe, amid fears that "the companies concerned may have violated rules on cartels and restricted business practices."
- Smoking is banned in all pubs and private member's clubs in England. The British government estimates that 600,000 people will quit smoking as a result of the law change, which will come into effect in mid-2007.
- Tony Blair's controversial plan to introduce a new law stopping people "glorifying" terrorism is backed by British MP's.

February 15th
- Haitian elections, 2006 : In a case of apparent electoral fraud , hundreds of ballot boxes are discovered in a garbage dump in Haiti , throwing the results of the elections there in doubt. CBC

February 16th
- The US rejects calls by UN human rights investigators for the immediate closure of the 500-strong US detention camp at Guantanemo Bay, Cuba. The investigators claim that treatment of some of the detainees violates their rights to physical and mental health.
- Investigation committee formed in Iraq in response to claims by US military that a "death squad" working for the Iraqi interior ministry has been targetting Sunni Arab Iraqis.
- Rene Preval declared president of Haiti, taking 51 % of the electoral vote.
- Australian police ordered by a court to return a can of paint and rollers to 2 anti-war protesters jailed for painting slogans on the Sydney Opera House in 2003. The protesters intend to auction off the tools for charity.
- US secretary of state asks the US congress for $75m to increase TV and radio broadcasts and to fund dissident groups in Iran, all with aim of putting pressure on the Iranian government and promoting internal opposition to it.

February 17th
- In Libya, at least eleven protesters are killed in riots protesting the Muhammad cartoons in Tripoli outside the Italian consulate in Benghazi in reaction to Italian reform minister Roberto Calderoli wearing a T-shirt depicting the cartoons.

February 18th
- Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta rebels kidnap nine foreign oil workers in Nigeria. (CNN)

February 19th
- The movie Grbavica by Jasmila Bani wins the Golden Bear at the Berlinale film festival

February 20th
- British historian David Irving found guilty in Vienna of Holocaust Denial (illegal in Austria) and is sentenced to three years in prison.
- Ismail Haniya is officially presented by Hamas leaders as their choice for prime minister during talks in Gaza.
- Russia urges Iran to stop enriching uranium.
- A newspaper in Saudi Arabia which printed some of the Mohammed cartoons in an effort to mobilize the Saudi Arabian campaign against Denmark is suspended from publishing.

February 21st
- Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, head of the Vatican Bank during the fraudulent collapse of Banco Ambrosiano in 1982 dies in Arizona.
- At least 22 people killed and 30 injured in a car bombing at a market in Baghdad.

February 22nd
- Serbian Governement denies reports that Bosnian Serb war crimes suspect General Ratko Mladic, wanted by the International tribunal in the Hague for his involvement I the Siege of Sarajevo and the Srerenica massacre, has been arrested.
- The bombing of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra leads to mass protests in Iraq.
- Anti-Muslim riots spanning leave at least 80 dead in Onitsha, Nigeria. Christians armed with machetes were taking revenge for the killing of over 30 Christians in riots in 2 mainly Muslim towns in northern Nigeria.

February 23rd
- Over 100 killed in Iraq in revenge for the bombing of key Shia shrine.
- A White House report concludes that the Federal disaster response plans to Hurricane Katrina in the US had “significant flaws.
- A Bank of England spokesman says the money was taken yesterday from a cash center in the small town of Tonbridge.
Officials now say the robbers may have gotten away with up to the equivalent of 87 million dollars.

February 24th
- Bono and geldof nominated along with 190 other nominees for nobel peace prize
- Saudi security forces foil an apparent suicide car bomb attack, aimed at a major oil production facility in Abqaiq. - Mayor of London Ken Livingstone is suspended from office for comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard
- Over 50 killed and 100 injured in a fire at a textile mill in Bangladesh.

February 25th
- 36 people killed in Iraq due to increasing sectarian violence. A curfew is extended to attempt counter the troubles.
- Yoweri Museveni is elected President of Uganda for a third term - his opponents declared that the election was rigged.
- Punk band The Sex Pistols refuse to attend their induction into the US Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame.
- The H5N1 strain of bird flu reaches the EU, with an outbreak in France.
- 2 more people arrested in relation to the SECURITAS raid bank robbery.
- Riots and destruction in Dublin city in the aftermath if an Orange march.

February 26th
- 33,000 people march in Paris in defiance of the abduction, torture and murder of
- Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old cell phone salesman, who was abducted on Jan. 21 by members of a gang who held him hostage in a Paris suburb for three weeks while demanding ransoms from his jewish family.He died en route to hospital on Feb. 13 after he was found lying beside some train tracks, naked, handcuffed and covered with burn marks.
- A spokesman for the British Department for Transport said the Aviation Health Working Group has arranged for the Committee on Toxicity to review evidence found by the Observer Newspaper that airplanes emit toxic gases to its staff and passengers.

February 27th
- Writers Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh sue Random House in the High Court of Justice in London claiming that the best selling novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown contains ideas stolen from their 1982 book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail.

February 28th
- Domesticated cat is found infected with the H5N1 bird flu virus. The dead cat was found on the island of Rügen in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Germany.