NationMaster - Encyclopedia: February 2007

February 2007 is the second month of the year. It began on a Thursday and 28 days later, ended on a Wednesday. This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the CE era. ... The god Thor, after whom Thursday is named. ... The god Woden, after whom Wednesday was named. ...

[edit] International holidays

February 6 - Waitangi Day (New Zealand)
February 14 - Valentines Day

February 6 is the 37th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Waitangi Day is a public holiday in New Zealand held each year on February 6 to celebrate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealands founding document, on that date in 1840. ... February 14 is the 45th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Valentines Day postcard, c. ...

[edit] Portal:Current events

February 1, 2007 (Thursday)

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Harry Potter author J. K. Rowling announces the release date for her book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the final installment in the Potter series to be 21 July 2007. (J.K.Rowling Official Site)
The French government has banned the smoking of cigarettes in all public places. (ABC News) (wikinews)
British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, questioned for a second time in Scotland Yard's 'Cash for peerages' probe. Calls for an early departure for Blair increase.
36 people are killed in clashes between Bundu dia Kongo, an opposition secessionist religious group and the police in a dispute over the election of provincial governors. (BBC)
Sa'dah conflict: Ten Yemeni soldiers have been killed and 20 wounded in a fresh attack on an army roadblock, a security source says. (Aljazeera)
Palestinian factional violence: Hamas gunmen ambush a convoy carrying weapons to Mahmoud Abbas's presidential guard unit. Six Fatah members are killed, more than 70 people are wounded and 12 others are kidnapped in ensuing battles. (Ynet)
A trial for the murder of Janelle Patton on Norfolk Island starts with the defendant pleading not guilty. The murder was the first on the island for 150 years. (BBC)

February 2, 2007 (Friday)

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One 38-year-old policeman is killed in the Catania football clashes in Italy. 71 people are taken to the hospital.
Ali Hassan Al Majeed, commonly known as Chemical Ali, admits he ordered Iraqi troops to engage in genocide against the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan. He says the "emptying" of villages was justified because the Kurds assisted Iran forces in the Iran-Iraq war. (Gulf News)
Palestinian factional violence: Hamas and its rival Fatah renew their truce when violence broke off again after the initial ceasefire. (BBC) (CNN) (Reuters)
Chinese President Hu Jintao signs a series of economic deals with Sudan, which China has protected from UN sanctions. (BBC)
War in Somalia: Eight people are killed in a mortar attack in Somalia's capital Mogadishu. (BBC)
Martti Ahtisaari unveils a United Nations plan for the final status of Kosovo. Serbian leaders denounced the proposal. (CNN) (Reuters)
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes its fourth assessment report, concluding that global climate change is "very likely" to have a predominantly human cause. (BBC)
Storms hit Florida during the early morning hours, forecasters suspect tornadoes as the cause. At least 20 fatalities are reported from the storm. (CNN) (The Sun-Sentinel)
Tongan MP Clive Williams is arrested and charged with sedition arising from the 2006 Tonga riots. Williams had earlier claimed that Tongan soldiers had beaten hundreds of people following the riots. (Radio NZ)

February 3, 2007 (Saturday)

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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)

February 4, 2007 (Sunday)

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Palestinian factional violence: Fatah and Hamas take some of their gunmen off the streets of the West Bank and free some hostages under a new declared ceasefire. (BBC)
At least 20 people are killed and 340,000 are made homeless by floods in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. (BBC) (AP via ABC News)
Global spread of bird flu: UK authorities incinerate more than 50,000 turkeys as they are working to contain the bird flu. (BBC)
Three former high-ranking American military officers have warned against any military attack on Iran. (BBC)
Chinese President Hu Jintao continues his eight-nation tour in Africa as he arrives in Lusaka and hold talks with Zambian President Levy Mwanawasa. President Hu launched a copper mining partnership with Zambia and promised more in aid. (AP via ABC News) (BBC)
The U.S. military admits publicly for the first time that four U.S. helicopters were downed by ground fire in Iraq. (BBC)
Greece's conservative government wins a vote of confidence, ending a three-day debate that started with the opposition Socialist Party calling for early elections (AP)
A boat sailing from Tiko in Cameroon to Oron in Nigeria capsizes, leaving up to 85 people dead. (BBC News)
Germany beat Poland 29:24 in the finale of the 2007 World Men's Handball Championship, becoming new world champion in handball. Office website
American football: The AFC champion Indianapolis Colts defeat the NFC champion Chicago Bears 29-17 in Super Bowl XLI, claiming their first Super Bowl victory since winning Super Bowl V in 1971. (CBS Sport) (BBC Sport)

February 5, 2007 (Monday)

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U.S. Presidential Election, 2008: Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) officially files for candidacy for President of the United States of America. (FOX)
Space Shuttle astronaut Lisa Nowak is arrested in Florida for attempted kidnapping. (CNN)
Boris Berezovsky tells the BBC that Alexander Litvinenko, on his deathbed, said that Andrei Lugovoi was responsible for his poisoning. (BBC)
U.S. President George W. Bush has submitted a $2.9 trillion budget to Congress including almost $700 billion in new military spending. (BBC)
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has said his country can play a major role in international efforts to end the civil war in Iraq. (BBC)
French police arrest 13 Kurdish Turks for allegedly funding PKK terrorist operations. (Bloomberg)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will present a herbal treatment for AIDS that the Iranian government says is effective in helping patients to cure their symptoms. (Fox)
A coalition of charity, faith groups and unions have warned Tony Blair that any military action against Iran would have "unthinkable" consequences. (BBC)
Former Malaysian premier Mahathir Mohamad hosts a conference calling for George W. Bush and Tony Blair to be tried by an unofficial tribunal for war crimes in Iraq. (Reuters)

February 6, 2007 (Tuesday)

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At least three domain name system root nameservers are under denial-of-service attack. (The Register). See DNS Backbone DDoS Attacks
Representatives of the Lord's Resistance Army say they will continue fighting with the Government of Uganda if negotiations are not moved to another location outside of southern Sudan. (Al Jazeera)
A Human Rights Watch report concludes that European Union sanctions on the Government of Uzbekistan, which came in response to the "Andijan massacre" in May 2005, have failed due to a lack of commitment in enforcing them. (EurasiaNet)
United States President George W. Bush approves a Pentagon plan for establishing a new command center in Africa. (BBC)
An international passenger train crashes into a freight train in Komárom, Hungary, causing the engineer's death. Two of the 25 passengers also suffered injury. (HírTV)
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair says people are "increasingly alarmed" by Iran's nuclear program but military action was not being planned against it. (BBC)
The Iranian Government confirms that an Iranian envoy in Baghdad has been kidnapped by men wearing Iraqi army uniforms, and says it holds the United States responsible for his life. The U.S. denies any involvement of U.S. and Iraqi troops. (BBC)
UK newspaper The Sun has obtained a video tape of a U.S. pilot shooting a UK convoy in a friendly fire incident during the Iraq War, killing one British soldier and injuring four. The pilot, and others, are said to have made a series of crucial mistakes. (The Sun)
Three people in the United Kingdom have been jailed after plotting over internet chatrooms to abduct and rape two teenage girls. (The Times)

February 7, 2007 (Wednesday)

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Avivim incident: Israel Defense Forces and Lebanese Armed Forces exchange fire at the Israel-Lebanon border. (Ynetnews)
2007 United Kingdom letter bombs: A letter bomb, the third in as many days, has injured a woman working at the main DVLA centre in south Wales. Today's attack follows two others, at other road transport agencies in the UK. (BBC) (BBC) (BBC).
Indonesia's West Irian Jaya province, on New Guinea, changes its name to West Papua. (Radio New Zealand)

February 8, 2007 (Thursday)

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British police arrest Abu Izzadeen, the spokesman for al Ghurabaa, an organization the British government has designated as terrorist, on charges of inciting terrorism. (USA Today)
Seven alleged members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, an organization affiliated with Al-Qaeda, are on trial in Tajikistan.

February 9, 2007 (Friday)

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Iraq War: A report by the U.S. Defense Department's inspector general has found the The Pentagon "purposely manipulated" pre-war intelligence. Senator Carl Levin, D-MI, as chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee has called the report "very damning" and said of its results, "highly disturbing". (Baltimore Sun)
Cross-Strait relations:
- The government of the Republic of China, more commonly known as Taiwan, has announced the name change of a number of state-owned enterprises, including Chunghwa Telecom, Chunghwa Post, China Shipbuilding Corporation and Chinese Petroleum Corporation to use the name Taiwan in their titles. (The China Post) (Taipei Times)
- The U.S. State Department has stated the U.S. does not support this action. (China Daily) (Radio Taiwan) (U.S. State Department)
- ROC President Chen Shui-bian says this does not violate his "four noes" pledge. (Radio Taiwan)

February 10, 2007 (Saturday)

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Iraq War: General David Petraeus takes command of the United States forces in Iraq. (BBC)
Russian President Vladimir Putin criticizes the United States for its "almost uncontained" use of force around the world during his speech at the 43rd annual Munich Conference on Security Policy. (BBC) (Transcript of Putin's speech in English, 10 February.)
War in Somalia: Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohammed Ghedi modifies the roster of the Transitional Federal Government by removing army chief-of-staff Ismail Qasim Naji and assigning him as ambassador to Oman, while also appointing new ambassadors to Kenya, Djibouti, and Yemen. Meanwhile, the Somali People's Resistance Movement emerges as an insurgency movement out of the underground members of the Islamic Courts Union. (Shabelle)
United States presidential election, 2008: Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) officially announces his candidacy for president during a speech at the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois. (CNN)

February 11, 2007 (Sunday)

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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:
- The U.S. military accuses the government of Iran of supplying sophisticated roadside bombs to insurgents in Iraq. (BBC)
- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has dismissed calls by Western countries for Iran to suspend its nuclear program. (CNN) (Al Jazeera)
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 attack and possession of explosives. Their lawyers says they will appeal. (CNN)
A fire in a detention center for illegal immigrants in Yeosu, South Korea kills nine foreign nationals and injures 17. (BBC)

February 12, 2007 (Monday)

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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 i