Portal:Current events/2006 March 6

March 6, 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 Acts 1911 and 1949. (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)^{[permanent dead link]}
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)