February 2006 - 7 February 2006 (Tuesday)

7 February 2006 (Tuesday)

• Private Andrei Sychov, an 18-year old conscript soldier who was so severely beaten in a hazing incident at his base in Chelyabinsk on New Year's Eve that his legs and genitals had to be amputated, is transferred to Moscow for further treatment. The incident has caused uproar in Russia with President Putin addressing the State Duma on army bullying. Sixteen soldiers officially died in hazing incidents last year, although the figure does not include related suicides. (RIA Novosti) (Radio Free Europe)
• Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy:
  • An Iranian newspaper, Hamshahri, has announced a competition for the best cartoon of the Holocaust "as a test of the boundaries of free speech". (BBC) (WikiNews)
  • As the Danish embassy in Tehran is attacked by hundreds of protesters, five people are killed in Afghanistan as protests against European Muhammed cartoons sweep across the country. (BBC)
  • Prime Minister of Denmark Anders Fogh Rasmussen says violent Muslim protests over cartoons of Muhammad are a worldwide crisis spinning out of the control of governments. (Reuters)
• Monitored by thousands of UN peacekeepers, the people of Haiti go to polling stations in the country's first election since the ousting of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. (CTV)
• An Israeli airstrike on a car kills two Palestinian militants in Gaza City. (Reuters)
• Mounir El Motassadeq, a member of the Hamburg cell led by Mohamed Atta, is ordered an early release by the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. The Berlin court rules there is an absence of proof in the government's case that Motassadeq was informed about the 9/11 terrorist plot. (BBC)
• Scotland is to follow England into implementing the controversial UK National DNA Database of those arrested, but acquitted or released without charges. (Scotsman)
• Japan urges North Korea to return to six-party talks on its nuclear program and halt missile development, but a Japanese official said Pyongyang insists that Washington drop sanctions first. (Reuters)
• Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri is convicted on 11 of 15 charges of solicitation and incitement to murder, and incitement to racial hatred after a lengthy trial at London's Central Criminal Court and is sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. (BBC)
• The number of people attempting to view illegal child pornography on the web has risen since 2004, according to British Telecommunications (BT). They use a system to block sites carrying the images of children, which has been getting some 35,000 hits a day for the past four months. (BBC)