January 26, 2006 (Thursday)
- Islamist party Hamas' landslide victory in Palestinian elections ends four decades of rule by the Fatah party. Hamas secures 76 seats in the 132-member legislature through parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei announces he will resign and Fatah declares it will not join a Hamas-led coalition, although Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas plans to continue negotiations with Israel through the Palestine Liberation Organization.(BBC) (Haaretz)
- Indian foreign secretary Shyam Saran reacts sharply to US Ambassador David Mulford's warning over the future of the Indo-US nuclear deal, saying on Thursday that it was "inappropriate" and not conducive to good relations between the two countries. (Express India)[permanent dead link]
- One day after US ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza claimed that Mexican soldiers had helped drug smugglers to escape pursuit by Texas state police on US soil near El Paso, Texas, Mexican Secretary of Foreign Affairs Luis Ernesto Derbez suggested that the people involved may have been US soldiers wearing the uniforms of Mexican military. (Forbes)
- Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf rejects US objections to a proposed Iran–Pakistan–India pipeline for natural gas saying "It is in our economic interest. If somebody wants to stop us they should compensate us ... But at the moment we are going ahead". Musharraf also repeats his condemnation of the recent U.S. air strike in northern Pakistan which killed 18 people, including women and children. (VOA News)
- Liberal Democrat MEP for London, Sarah Ludford, who is leading a European Parliament investigation into the U.S. policy of "extraordinary rendition", says she may invite Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld or United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to testify. (Irish Independent Newspaper)
- In the long running dispute over Iran's nuclear program, the ambassador of the United States to India, David Mulford, has warned India to back the US plan to refer Iran to the United Nations Security Council or face cancellation of a US-India nuclear deal.(Financial Times)[permanent dead link]
- India's foreign ministry calls the comments inapproapiate and summons the ambassador to Delhi for an explanation (BBC news).
- The Foreign Ministry of China says "We oppose impulsively using sanctions or threats of sanctions to solve problems" and also indicates that they would support Russian efforts to resolve the dispute. (Reuters)
- Republic Day celebrations in India. Saudi King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz Al-Saud is in India as chief guest for the Republic Day celebration. (NDTV)
- Interpol issues red notices against Pakistan ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Ali Zardari. (BBC)
- Saudi Arabia recalled their envoy from Denmark after Muhammad Drawings controversy, and has initiated a boycott of Danish products. (BBC)