February 2006 - 6 February 2006 (Monday)

6 February 2006 (Monday)

• In Costa Rica, the presidential election is a tight race and too close to call. (Reuters)
• Mauritania denounces amendments to an oil contract made by former leader Maaouiya Ould Taya with Woodside Petroleum. The Mauritanian authorities declare that the amendments were signed "outside the legal framework of normal practice, to the great detriment of our country", and could cost Mauritania up to $200 million a year. (BBC) (Radio France International)
• U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearings begin regarding the NSA warrantless surveillance program, with testimony from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. (NPR)
• As Stephen Harper is sworn in as Canada's 22nd Prime Minister, David Emerson crosses the floor from the Liberal Party to join Harper's Conservative Party, and is appointed as Minister of International Trade. Harper also appointed Michael Fortier, an unelected party supporter, to minister of public works and government services and to the senate. (CTV) (CBC)
• United States, Indonesian, and Australian scientists working in the Foja Mountains in eastern Papua, Indonesia, discover 20 previously unknown frog species, a new species of honeyeater, four new butterflies, and at least five new plants. Also discovered were a kangaroo unknown in Papua, and a Six-wired Bird of Paradise, previously known only from dead specimens whose origin was unknown. (ABC)
• German car company BMW is banned from the Google index after attempting to deliberately deceive Google users. (Outer Court)
• In the Egyptian port of Safaga, relatives of hundreds of passengers killed when the ferry al-Salam Boccaccio '98 sank in the Red Sea, attack the office of El Salam Maritime Transport. (BBC)
• Isabelle Dinoire, the French woman who received the world's first partial face transplant appears before the media for the first time, saying she expects to resume a normal life. (CBC)
• The Austrian Embassy in Tehran is pelted with stones by some 200 youths, in retaliation for the printing of the Muhammed Cartoons by three Austrian newspapers.