February 2007 is the second month of the year. It began on a Thursday and 28 days later, ended on a Wednesday.
International holidays
|
|
- Hassan Nasrallah, head of Hezbollah, openly states for the first time that the governments of Iran and Syria are supporting Hezbollah financially, with weapons, and with training, and "everybody knows it." (The Jerusalem Post)
- Iraq War: at least 135 people are killed and 226 injured in a truck bombing in Baghdad (BBC); five people are killed and 40 injured in car bombs in Kirkuk. (BBC)
- An outbreak of the deadly strain of avian flu, H5N1, is confirmed at a Bernard Matthews turkey farm in Holton, Suffolk in the United Kingdom. (BBC)
- A State of Emergency is declared in Bolivia after 'El Niño'-like flooding. (NDTV)
- Catania football violence: After calls from Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi to cancel all matches, Italian Football Federation commissioner Luca Pancalli indefinitely suspends all football matches in Italy while an investigation into riots on February 2, during which a 38-year-old police officer was killed and 71 people were injured, begins. (The Guardian) (Wikinews)
- British Prime Minister Tony Blair urges Labour Party to 'weather the storm' during current political crisis for the party, and that 'policies will win the next election'. (BBC)
- The Spring Festival travel season in China begins, in which 156 million passengers will travel by train, and 2 billion bus trips are expected. (Xinhua) (People's Daily)
- Russia investigates smelly orange snow, oily to touch, which has fallen across an area of 1500 square kilometres in the Omsk region of the country. (BBC)
- American Football: Michael Irvin, Thurman Thomas, Gene Hickerson, Bruce Matthews, Charlie Sanders and Roger Wehrli are selected for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. (ESPN)
|
|
|
- UK's Vodafone buys 67% stake in India's fourth largest mobile operator, Hutch Essar, for $11.1 billion. (BBC) (Economic Times)
- Nine people are shot dead in Rio de Janeiro as police battle drug gangs and private militias for control of the favelas or shanty towns. (BBC)
- The Queen wins the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Film of 2006 with Helen Mirren winning the award as Best Actress. Forest Whitaker wins the Best Actor award for his role in the The Last King of Scotland which won the Best British Film Award. (Sydney Morning Herald)
- The Dixie Chicks dominate the 2007 Grammy Awards by winning five statuettes, including Record and Song of the Year ("Not Ready to Make Nice"). (NME) With the completion of the "big three" music awards, Mary J. Blige and American Idol winner Carrie Underwood are the only two artists this season to sweep all three major music awards (American Music, Billboard Music, and Grammy Awards). (Billboard) (Yahoo Music).
- Portugal votes on an abortion referendum which despite failing due to low turnout, has a clear result in favor of legalizing abortion, prompting Portuguese Prime Minister José Sócrates to say abortion will be legalized through the parliament. (BBC)
- Islamist insurgency in Somalia:
- An explosion at a ceremony in Kismayo kills at least four people and injures 24 others, including senior military officers and regional leaders. General Abdi Mahdi, the recently appointed Somali military chief, is among the injured. (Aljazeera)
- Mortar attacks in two areas of Mogadishu kill at least five people and injure several others, a day after a PRMLTM said it increase attacks. (Aljazeera)
- Two people die in protests in Priština, Kosovo over a United Nations plan for the future of the Serbian province. (BBC)
- Iran:
- Barack Obama, following a political rally in Ames, Iowa, regretted saying the lives of military personnel had been "wasted." (Register) (Boston Hereld)
- Voters in Turkmenistan vote in their first presidential election to select a successor to former President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov. Interim leader Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow is widely expected to win the election. (BBC)
- Rakhat Aliyev, son-in-law of Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and First Vice Foreign Minister, is demoted to ambassador to Austria for the second time amid accusations he stole money from Nurbank bank and alleged involvement in the kidnapping and murdering of two Nurbank officials. (EurasiaNet)
- A top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been suspended from her job for six months while a corruption inquiry is conducted, officials say. (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
- The National Court of Spain finds five out of six Algerian men guilty of membership in a terrorist organization and document forgery for terrorist purposes, sentencing each of them to 13 years imprisonment. All six were acquitted of conspiracy to carry out a terrorist att
|
|
|
- A gunman kills five people in the Trolley Square shopping center in Salt Lake City, Utah, before being shot by police. (Salt Lake Tribune), (KSL-NBC), (KUTV-CBS), (CNN), (BBC)
- India's Hindalco Industries buys Atlanta-based Novelis for US$6 billion. (BusinessWeek) (Forbes) (NYTimes)
- Approximately 60,000 people in Mozambique are evacuated in the Zambezi River valley due to floods caused by three weeks of heavy rain. (BBC)
- A suspicious brown substance is found in envelope at the Virginia Supreme Court building in Richmond, Virginia, United States, on the same day that Senator John McCain (R-AZ) speaks at the Jefferson Hotel. (Richmond Times-Dispatch) (CBS News) (Forbes.com) (Fox News) (Guardian Unlimited) (International Herald Tribune)
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad states in an interview that Iran does not fear the U.S. and that any foreign attack would be "severely punished". (BBC)
- United States Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, Christopher R. Hill, announces that tentative agreement has been reached over North Korean nuclear disarmament pending review by the signatories. (CNN)
- Iraq's High Tribunal sentences former Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan to death for his role in the 1982 killing of 148 men and boys in Dujail following an unsuccessful assassination attempt against Saddam Hussein. (CNN)
- Italian police arrest in raids 15 people who the police claimed were associated with the Red Brigades terrorist group. (BBC)
- Iraq War: At least 76 people are killed in four bomb attacks in Baghdad. (BBC)
- An earthquake of a magnitude of 6.1 on the Richter scale strikes about 160 km east of Cabo de São Vicente, Portugal, at 11:36 am (CET). (Bloomberg)
- A German court orders the release of Brigitte Mohnhaupt, a former member of the Red Army Faction, also known as the "Baader-Meinhof Gang"; she has served 24 years in prison for her involvement in kidnappings and murders in the 1970s. (CNN)
- 2007 Guinean general strike: Unions in Guinea resume a general strike to protest the President of Guinea Lansana Conté appointing Eugène Camara as Prime Minister of Guinea. At least 17 people have died in protests over the weekend. The protest started on the morning of the 12th with a march from the centre of Conakry to the palace. Widespread problems with armed bandits taking advantage of the insecurity have also been reported. Lansana Conté has now declared a state of emergency. (Reuters) (SOS) (AP via Houston Chronicle)
- China's trade surplus increases by 67%, increasing pressure on the government to float the yuan. (BBC)
- The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society claims that one of its ships has collided with a Japanese whaling vessel in the Ross Sea, leading to the Japanese vessel lodging a distress call. (Sydney Morning Herald)
- Islamist insurgency in Somalia: Five mortar bombs explode in Mogadishu, killing at least three people. (Reuters)
- Four state-owned enterprises of the Republic of China (Taiwan)—Chunghwa Post, the Chinese Petroleum Corporation, the China Shipbuilding Corporation, and the Central Bank of China—change their names to remove "China" from their titles at the request of President Chen Shui-bian. The decision is condemned by the Pan-Blue Coalition, the United States and People's Republic of China as a move towards Taiwan independence. (CNN) (Reuters)
- Israel has carried out a successful test of its Arrow missile, the defence ministry says. (BBC)
- Australian Prime Minister John Howard criticizes U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) for his stance on Iraq, saying that al-Qaeda in Iraq should be praying for Obama to win the election. The opposition Australian Labor Party says that Howard's statement imperiled the relationship Australia might have with the United States under a Democratic administration. (Sydney Morning Herald) (BBC) (Al Jazeera)
|
|
|
- The TGV beats the record of the world's fastest conventional train with a speed of 553 km/h (344 mph) reached during a test run on the LGV Est. (Le Vif / L'Express)
- Iraq War:
- Dutch oil-trading company Trafigura agrees to pay the Côte d'Ivoire government $198 million to clean up a 2006 toxic waste spill which led to the deaths of 10 people. (BBC)
- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his administration is open to negotiations regarding its nuclear program. (BBC)
- United States presidential election, 2008: Former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney (R) formally announces his candidacy for president. (CNN)
- A tornado strikes New Orleans, Louisiana leaving one dead and three people injured. (CNN)
- A small business jet heading to Berlin, Germany crashes during take-off at Vnukovo airport in Moscow, Russia. (Interfax), (BBC)
- Ma Ying-jeou, the party chairman of the Kuomintang, resigns after being indicted by the Taiwan High Prosecutors Office on charges of embezzlement during his tenure as the mayor of Taipei. (Taipei Times News)
- Fatmir Rexhepi, the Interior Minister of Kosovo, resigns after two people died in recent protests. (AKI)
- Japan holds an international conference to push for the resumption of commercial whaling. Anti-whaling nations in the International Whaling Commission such as the United States, United Kingdom and Australia have boycotted the conference. (AP via AHT)
- At least three people have been killed in bomb blasts that hit two buses in the village of Bikfaya near Beirut, Lebanon. (BBC) (ITV)
- The World Bank has approved construction of the Baglihar Dam on the Chenab River in Indian-administered Kashmir. (BBC)
|
| |
