JANUARY
3 Jan - The price of fish in Tanzania's commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, is two or three times higher than it had been before last week’s tsunami struck the Indian Ocean nation.
[
Full report]
7 Jan - Three NGOs go to court to challenge provisions in the country's election law that allows contestants to offer hospitality to constituents during campaigns.
[
Full report]
7 Jan - Seven NGOs form a coalition to fight female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that is still widespread in the country.
[
Full report]
FEBRUARY
10 Feb - The government introduces a programme to decongest its prisons. Convicts jailed for periods up to three years may have their sentences suspended by performing community services.
[
Full report]
MARCH
2 March – The executive director of the Tanzania Gender Networking Programme, Mary Rusimbi, says the country’s activist groups dealing with gender, democracy and good governance have drawn up a voters' manifesto, focusing on accountability of those seeking political office. Some 52 organisations that make up the membership the Feminist Activism Coalition (FemAct), a networking social movement that advocates for the protection of human rights and women's empowerment, ratify the manifesto.
[
Full report]
6 March - Fourteen people are wounded, two of them seriously, in clashes between rival political parties on Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar. Police say the fighting comes as the nation prepares for general elections.
[
Full report]
17 March - People suffering from tuberculosis will have their dosages of tablets reduced from between 11 and 12 to two or three daily, Health Minister Anna Abdallah announces.
[
Full report]
18 March - A network of 40 civil society organisations working with smallholder farmers cautions the government against its plans to introduce genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the country.
[
Full report]
21 March - The government launches its 10-year water plan coincide with UN World Water Day, which is observed worldwide on 7 April. The government says it needs US $1 billion to halve the number of people who do not have access to clean water.
[
Full report]
[
Tanzania: Maternal death rate still too high, minister says]
30 March - An official of the Ministry of Labour and Youth Development says officials have rescued or prevented 30,530 children from being employed in the worst forms of labour over the last three years.
[
Full report]
APRIL
5 April - The electoral body in the semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar stops registering voters following a number of violent political incidents, including an attack on a registration centre near the capital Stone Town.
[
Full report]
7 April - Voter registration resumes in Zanzibar after a two-day suspension following violence between supporters of the two main political parties, the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi and the opposition Civic United Front.
[
Full report]
8 April - The executive chairman on the Tanzania Commission for AIDS (TACAIDS), Herman Lupogo, announces that the rate of HIV infections in the country has declined from 10 percent in 2002 to 7 percent in 2003-2004, with more infections in urban areas than in the countryside.
[
Full report]
20 April - Thousands of people in the north of Zanzibar are made homeless following the heaviest rains on the island for more than three decades, a government official says.
[
Full report]
MAY
10 May - The African Medical Research Foundation launches the third phase of a media campaign aimed at promoting voluntary HIV testing and counselling in Tanzania.
[
Full report]
[
Tanzanian government opts for new malaria drug]
13 May - The government terminates its 10-year contract with an international firm for the provision of water and sewerage services to Dar es Salaam, for what it describes as a "poor performance".
[
Full report]
30 May - A local pharmaceutical company announces it will begin producing generic anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) in mid-2006 from a factory in the northern town of Arusha.
[
Full report]
JUNE
16 June - Child labour and early marriages are still rampant in Tanzania, putting hundreds of thousands of children at risk, government officials say in Zanzibar during celebrations to mark the African Child Day.
[
Full report]
16 June - At least 100,000 people living with HIV/AIDS will receive anti-retroviral drugs (ARVs) free of charge by the end of 2006, Prime Minister Frederick Sumaye announces.
[
Full report]
20 June - As part of activities to mark the World Refugee Day, the government of Tanzania grants citizenship to the first 182 of 1,320 Somali refugees said to be descendants of slaves who were captured from Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania.
[
Full report]
24 June - The government announces that a crisis at the Muhimbili National Hospital has ended after the reinstatement of medical interns sacked following a weeklong strike for an increase in allowances.
[
Full report]
JULY
13 July - For every 1,000 children born in the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba 102 of them die before they reach the age of five years, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) says. It says the main causes of the deaths are malnutrition, malaria, poverty and ignorance.
[
Full report]
15 July - An East Africa Law Society report cites evidence of corruption in the voter registration process in Zanzibar as well as an "underlying environment of police brutality and intimidation" ahead of nationwide election.
[
Full report]
AUGUST
1 Aug - Measles immunisation is completed for of at least six million children aged five years and below.
[
Full report]
10 Aug - Twelve of Tanzania's 18 registered political parties sign a code of conduct, which lays out rules for the country's general elections.
[
Full report]
21 Aug - Presidential election campaigns kick off, with political leaders promising to wrench the country out of grinding poverty, as well as fight graft and enhance the status of women in society.
[
Full report]
22 Aug - Electoral commission officials say 17 registered political parties in Zanzibar have signed an electoral code of conduct ahead of the general elections.
[
Full report]
31 Aug - Education Minister Joseph Mungai threatens to deregister an NGO that produces a report critical of the government's efforts to reform primary education.
[
Full report]
31 Aug - Health officials acknowledge that services provided by many of the 75,000 registered local healers are beneficial to people living with HIV/AIDS but also warn that some healers are making false claims that they can cure the condition.
[
Full report]
SEPTEMBER
5 Sept - Election campaigns start in Zanzibar, with the main opposition expressing renewed concerns that the vote may be rigged.
[
Full report]
20 Sept - Zanzibar electoral body says voter lists are faulty. At least 700 people have registered more than once to vote.
[
Full report]
29 Sept - At least 594,500 Tanzanians will require food aid between November 2005 and January 2006, mostly in rural areas where crop production dropped, according to an assessment conducted by the Famine Early Warning System Network (FEWS NET).
[
Full report]
OCTOBER
5 Oct - The government bans a local NGO, known as Hakielimu, from undertaking studies and publishing any articles regarding schools claiming it has been disparaging the country's education system and teaching profession.
[
Full report]
6 Oct - A US $35-million HIV/AIDS treatment centre opens at Tanzania's main referral hospital, the Muhimbili National Hospital, with a capacity to process up to 1,000 tests in an hour.
[
Full report]
9 Oct - At least 18 supporters of the main opposition party in Zanzibar are wounded after police open fire on a crowd.
[
Full report]
[
Violence increases as polling day approaches]
25 Oct - Electoral body details polling, results procedure.
[
Full report]
26 Oct - The Zanzibar Electoral Commission announces that verification of the voters' registers is complete.
[
Full report]
27 Oct – The general election, due 30 October, is postponed to 18 December because of the death of opposition vice-presidential candidate Jumbe Rajab Jumbe. Announcing the postponement, National Electoral Commission Chairman Lewis Makame says, however, that presidential and parliamentary elections would go ahead as planned in Zanzibar and Pemba.
[
Full report]
30 Oct - Presidential, parliamentary and local council elections on the archipelago of Zanzibar are conducted relatively peacefully, despite widespread allegations of voting irregularities and claims of government intimidation of opposition supporters.
[
Full report]
NOVEMBER
1 Nov - Zanzibar's Electoral Commission declares Amani Abeid Karume the winner of Sunday's presidential polls held amid tension and violence.
[
Full report]
1 Nov - Several areas of Zanzibar's historic Stone Town are deserted and businesses remain closed as the police and supporters of the opposition Civic United Front engaged in street battles.
[
Full report]
2 Nov - Zanzibari President Amani Abeid Karume is sworn in following his re-election in polls that were marred by violence and claims of fraud.
[
Full report]
5 Nov - The main opposition party in Zanzibar, CUF, says its 19 candidates who won seats in parliamentary elections on 30 October would attend legislative sessions but the party would not cooperate with newly re-elected President Amani Abeid Karume.
[
Full report]
21 Nov - A strike by junior doctors at the main national hospital, Mhumbili, enters a fifth day, with bed occupancy dropping amid complaints of neglect by patients seeking care.
[
Full report]
25 Nov - The plight of patients at Muhimbi referral hospital eases following the deployment of 75 doctors from military and research institutions to replace doctors sacked after a weeklong strike to press for better pay.
[
Full report]
30 Nov - In a speech to Tanzanians broadcast live nationwide on radio and television, President Benjamin Mkapa bids the country farewell with a plea to all citizens to establish their HIV status, saying the deadly disease is wreaking havoc in the country.
[
Full report]
DECEMBER
1 Dec - Serious food shortages are expected in the country over the next several months, the Roman Catholic relief organisation, Caritas, says.
[
Full report]
14 Dec - Tanzanians turned out massively to vote in presidential and parliamentary elections, the third since the adoption of multiparty politics in 1992. Voting is largely peaceful and smooth.
[
Full report]
16 Dec - The National Electoral Commission announced that the ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) party has won the most parliamentary seats in the semiautonomous islands of Zanzibar.
[
Full report]
18 Dec - The National Electoral Commission announces that CCM party has won presidential and parliamentary elections. CCM presidential candidate Jakaya Kikwete wins 80.2 percent of the vote. The CCM also sweeps the parliament polls, wining 206 of its 232 seats, six more than it had previously won. The main opposition party, the Civic United Front, win 19 seats. Eleven million of the 16 million registered people cast ballots.
[
Full report]
[
Profile on presidential candidate Jakaya Kikwete]
21 Dec - Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete, 55, is sworn-in on Wednesday in Dar es Salaam as the nation's fourth president.
[
Full report]