Today in History - February 7
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457 Feb 7, A Thracian officer by the name of Leo was proclaimed as emperor of the East by the army general, Aspar, on the death of the Emperor Marcian.
(HN, 2/7/99)
590 Feb 7, Pelagius II, Gothic Pope (579-90), died from plague.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1249 Feb 7, The Christburg Peace Treaty forced the Prussians to recognize the rule of the Teutonic Knights. Within about 50 years the Teutonic Knights and Knights of the Cross had overcome most of Prussia and established German as the dominant culture and language. The German orders then turned to Lithuania.
(H of L, 1931, p.25)(LHC, 2/7/03)
1301 Feb 7, Edward of Caernarion (later Edward II) became the 1st prince of Wales.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1478 Feb 7, Sir Thomas Moore (d.1535), English humanist, statesman and writer, was born in London. He was best friend of Erasmus, and called by Erasmus: "a man for all seasons." He studied law and rose to the post of lord chancellor after the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. More would not accept Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon nor his subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn. The king had charges of treason filed and More was beheaded on July 6, 1535. He was canonized in 1935. The 1966 film “A man for All Seasons" was based on his life. He is famous for "Utopia."
(V.D.-H.K.p.160)(CU, 6/87)(WUD, 1994, p.931)(HN, 2/7/99)
1497 Feb 7, Followers of the priest Girolamo Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of objects in Florence, Italy, on the Shrove Tuesday festival. Tom Wolfe's 1997 novel, “The Bonfire of the Vanities," makes reference to the original event, but is not a retelling of the story.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_Vanities)
1522 Feb 7, Treaty of Brussels: Habsburgers split into Spanish and Austrian Branches.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1569 Feb 7, King Philip II ordered the inquisition in South America.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1609 Feb 7, Ferdinand I, cardinal, ruler of Tuscany, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1612 Feb 7, Thomas Killigrew, English humorist, playwright, leader (King's Men), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1639 Feb 7, Academie Francaise began its Dictionary of French Language.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1668 Feb 7, English King William III danced in the premiere of "Ballet of Peace."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1668 Feb 7, The Netherlands, England and Sweden concluded an alliance directed against Louis XIV of France.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1693 Feb 7, Anna Ivanova Romanova, empress of Russia (1730-40) [NS], was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1710 Feb 7, William Boyce, English organist, composer of Cathedral music, was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1739 Feb 7, Joseph Pouteau, composer, was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1740 Feb 7, Adam-Philippe Custine, French earl, general, MP, was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1743 Feb 7, Lodovico Giustini (57), composer, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1749 Feb 7, Andre Cardinal Destouches (76), composer, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1752 Feb 7, Publication, sale and distribution of the 1st 2 volumes of the Encyclopedie were summarily forbidden by order of King Louis XV. Chretien de Malesherbes, the French director of publications, managed to broker a compromise that included a layer of censorship and a 3rd volume was published by the end of 1753.
(ON, 4/05, p.9)
1779 Feb 7, William Boyce (67), composer, died. [see Feb 16]
(MC, 2/7/02)
1799 Feb 7, China’s Emperor Qianlong (b.1711) died. He was the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China (1735-1796).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor)
1783 Feb 7, The Siege of Gibraltar, pursued by the Spanish and the French since July 24, 1779, was finally lifted. [see Sep 13, 1782]
(HN, 2/7/99)(ON, 7/01, p.10)
1784 Feb 7, In Iceland the Lakagicar (Laki) volcano ceased its eruptions. Smoke from the 8 months of eruptions caused one of the longest and coldest winters in Europe. [see Jun 8, 1783]
(ON, 2/04, p.10)
1792 Feb 7, Cimarosa's opera "Il Matrimonio Segreto," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1795 Feb 7, The 11th Amendment to US Constitution was ratified.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1801 Feb 7, John Rylands, merchant, philanthropist, was born in England.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1804 Feb 7, John Deere, farm equipment manufacturer, was born.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1812 Feb 7, Charles Dickens, English novelist, was born in Portsmouth, England. His stories reflected life in Victorian England. In his novel "Dombey & Son," Dickens confronted the subject of money, and its use as a measure of success. His work also included "Master Humphrey’s Clock," published in installments like most of his novels. The closing line of A Christmas Carol: "And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!" Some of his more famous novels include "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale of Two Cities."
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.E3)(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1812 Feb 7, Lord Byron made his maiden speech in House of Lords.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1818 Feb 7, The first successful U.S. educational magazine, Academician, began publication in New York City.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1820 Feb 7, Samuel Adams Holyoke (57/58), composer, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1827 Feb 7, Ballet (Deserter) was introduced to US at Bowery Theater in NYC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1827 Feb 7, Franz Anton Dimmler (73), composer, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1831 Feb 7, The first Belgian Constitution was ratified.
(http://tinyurl.com/po6gghe)
1836 Feb 7, The essays "Sketches by Boz" were published by Charles Dickens.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1837 Feb 7, Sir James Augustus Henry Murray, Scottish lexicographer and editor, was born. He created the Oxford Dictionary.
(HN, 2/7/01)(MC, 2/7/02)
1839 Feb 7, Henry Clay declared in Senate "I had rather be right than president."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1857 Feb 7, A French court acquitted author Gustave Flaubert of obscenity for his serialized novel "Madame Bovary."
(AP, 2/7/08)
1861 Feb 7, The general council of the Choctaw Indian nation adopted a resolution declaring allegiance with the South "in the event a permanent dissolution of the American Union takes place."
(AP, 2/7/07)
1862 Feb 7, Bernard Maybeck (d.1957), architect, was born in NYC. He designed the Palace of Fine Arts in SF and the First Church of Christ Scientist in Berkeley.
(SFEM,12/797, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Maybeck)
1862 Feb 7, Federal fleet attacked Roanoke Island, NC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1864 Feb 7, Federal troops occupied Jacksonville, Florida.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1865 Feb 7, John Henry Winder (b.1800), US Confederate brig-gen and provost marshal, died. He was in charge of all Union prisoners east of the Mississippi River.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACWwinder.htm)
1867 Feb 7, Laura Ingalls Wilder, author, was born. She wrote "Little House in the Big Woods" which was basis for television's "Little House on the Prairie."
(HN, 2/7/99)
1870 Feb 7, Alfred Adler, psychiatrist (Inferiority Complex), was born in Austria.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1871 Feb 7, Karl Wilhelm Eugen Stenhammer, composer, was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1871 Feb 7, Henry Steinway (b.1797), German-American piano maker, died. In 2006 James Barron authored “Piano," a history of the development of the modern piano.
(WSJ, 7/15/06, p.P8)(http://tinyurl.com/qn6dy)
1872 Feb 7, Alcorn A & M College opened.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1878 Feb 7, Pope Pius IX (1846-1878), Giovanni Ferretti (85), died. Revenge-seeking Italian liberals tried to dump his body into the Tiber River. He served 31 years, seven months and 22 days
(PTA, 1980, p.510)(SFC, 9/1/00, p.D4)(AP, 10/15/03)
1882 Feb 7, American pugilist John L. Sullivan became the last of the bare-knuckle world heavyweight champions with his defeat of Patty Ryan in Mississippi City.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Sullivan)
1883 Feb 7, Eubie Blake, ragtime composer, pianist (Memories of You), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1885 Feb 7, Sinclair Lewis (d.1951), American novelist of satire and realism, was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. His books include "Arrowsmith" and "Elmer Gantry." “There are two insults which no human will endure: the assertion that he hasn’t a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble." "Winter is not a season, it's an occupation."
(AP, 6/26/98)(AP, 12/22/99)(HNQ, 5/18/98)(HN, 2/7/99)
1891 Feb 7, US Great Blizzard of 1891 began.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1894 Feb 7, The US House of Representatives passed a resolution that prevented the sending of US troops to Hawaii to restore Queen Lili’uokalani.
(ON, 11/02, p.7)
1904 Feb 7, A fire in Baltimore raged for about 30 hours and destroyed more than 1,500 buildings over 80 blocks. The fired caused an estimated $80 million in damages.
(AP, 2/7/97)(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A23)(MC, 2/7/02)
1905 Feb 7, Ulf Svante von Euler-Chelpin, Swedish physiologist, was born.
(HN, 2/7/01)
1905 Feb 7, Congress granted statehood to Oklahoma. New Mexico and Arizona were the only remaining territories. [see 1907]
(HN, 2/7/99)
1905 Feb 7, The Dominican Republic signed a treaty turning over customs collection to US.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1906 Feb 7, Aisingyoro Henry Puyi, the last emperor of China, was born in Beijing.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C16)(AP, 2/7/06)
1910 Feb 7, Edmond Rostand's "Chanticleer," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1812 Feb 7, A 3rd major earthquake shook New Madrid, Missouri, and for a few hours reversed the course of the Mississippi River. [see Dec 15-16, 1811, Jan 23, 1912]
(NH, 3/1/04, p.67)
1913 Feb 7, Turks lost 5,000 men in a battle with the Bulgarian army in Gallipoli.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1914 Feb 7, Charlie Chaplin debuted "The Tramp" in "Kid Auto Races at Venice."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1914 Feb 7, Steel work was completed on Exposition (Civic) Auditorium, SF.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1915 Feb 7, 1st wireless message sent from a moving train to a station was received.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1915 Feb 7, Fieldmarshal Paul von Hindenburg moved on Russians at Masurian Lakes.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1917 Feb 7, The British steamer California was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1918 Feb 7, Singapore businessman Ong Sam Leong (b.1857) died. He made a fortune out of his monopoly on the supply of coolie labor from China to phosphate mines on Christmas Island.
(http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_1461_2009-02-19.html)
1920 Feb 7, Oscar Brand, folk vocalist (Draw Me a Laugh), was born in Winnipeg, Canada.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1920 Feb 7, Adm. Alexander Kolchak (b.1874), commander of the White Army in Siberia during the civil war that followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, was executed by a firing squad in Irkutsk about a month after relinquishing command of anti-Bolshevik forces. He was condemned in Soviet law as a counterrevolutionary. In 2004 efforts began to exonerate him.
(AP, 12/7/04)(www.firstworldwar.com/bio/kolchak.htm)
1922 Feb 7, John Willard's "Cat & the Canary," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1924 Feb 7, Mussolini government exchanged diplomats with USSR.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1926 Feb 7, Negro History Week, originated by Carter G. Woodson, was observed for the first time. The 2nd week in February was declared Negro History Week.
(USAT, 2/14/97, p.15A)(HN, 2/7/99)
1928 Feb 7, The United States signed an arbitration treaty with France.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1928 Feb 7, Australian Bert Hinkler took off from London in a two-seat Avro 581E Avian biplane on the first leg of his solo flight from England to Australia. On February 22, after flying 128 hours in less than 16 days, Hinkler's 11,250-mile adventure ended in Darwin, Australia.
(HNQ, 2/7/01)
1931 Feb 7, US opera, "Peter Ibbetson," by Deems Taylor premiered at Met Opera NYC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1931 Feb 7, Amelia Earhart (33), aviatrix, married George Palmer Putnam (45), divorced heir to a publishing empire in Noank, Conn.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.31)(HN, 2/7/99)
1932 Feb 7, Gay Talese, author (Honor Thy Father), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1933 Feb 7, At a Social-Democrat meeting in Berlin thousands cheered as Marxism was pronounced dead.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1934 Feb 7, 1st contract for TVA power was in Tupelo, Miss.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1934 Feb 7, Kathleen Norris, a SF Bay Area novelist based in Palo Alto, summed up a trip to Germany saying Hitler has virtually solved problems of unemployment and poverty. She said the leader was idolized everywhere as the people’s rescuer.
(SSFC, 2/1/09, p.50)
1936 Feb 7, President Roosevelt authorized a flag for the office of the vice president.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1940 Feb 7, Walt Disney's 2nd feature-length movie, "Pinocchio," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1941 Feb 7, Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey Orch recorded "Everything Happens to Me."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1943 Feb 7, The government announced that shoe rationing would go into effect in two days, limiting each purchaser to three pairs for the remainder of the year.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1944 Feb 7, Bing Crosby and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded "Swinging on a Star" for Decca Records in Los Angeles.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1944 Feb 7, The Germans launched a [counteroffensive] second attack against the Allied beachhead at Anzio, Italy. They hoped to push the Allies back into the sea.
(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1945 Feb 7, US 76th and 5th Infantry divisions began crossing Sauer.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1947 Feb 7, Arabs and Jews rejected a British proposal to split Palestine.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1948 Feb 7, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower resigned as Army chief of staff and was succeeded by Gen. Omar Bradley.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1949 Feb 7, Joe DiMaggio of the NY Yankees became the 1st $100,000/year baseball player.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1950 Feb 7, The United States recognized Vietnam under the leadership of Emperor Bao Dai, not Ho Chi Minh who was recognized by the Soviets.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1956 Feb 7, Garth Brooks, country vocalist (No Fences), was born in Tulsa, Okla.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1958 Feb 7, The Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team became the LA Dodgers, Inc.
(SFEC, 9/15/96, Par p.14)
1959 Feb 7, Castro proclaimed a new Cuban constitution.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1960 Feb 7, Old handwriting was found in at Qumran, Jordan, near the Dead Sea. [see 1947]
(MC, 2/7/02)
1961 Feb 7, Jane Fonda made her acting debut in the NBC drama "A String of Beads."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1961 Feb 7, Immanuel Olsvanger (b.1888), Polish-born Jewish folklorist, died in Israel.
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.87)(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Olsvanger)
1962 Feb 7, Sam Snead won the LPGA Royal Poinciano Plaza Golf Invitational.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1962 Feb 7, President Kennedy began the blockade of Cuba.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1963 Feb 7, The "Mona Lisa" was unveiled at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1964 Feb 7, The British band The Beatles began their first American tour as they arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, where they were greeted by 25,000 screaming fans.
(SFEM, 3/9/96, p.35)(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1964 Feb 7, Baskin-Robbins introduced Beatle Nut ice cream.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1965 Feb 7, U.S. jets hit Don Hoi guerrilla base in reprisal for the Viet Cong raids. Pres. Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam following the deaths of 9 US soldiers near Pleiku.
(HN, 2/7/99)(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)
1965 Feb 7, Cassius Clay became a Muslim and adopted the name Muhammad Ali.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1967 Feb 7, Henry Morgenthau (b.1891), 52nd US secretary of the treasury, died. He served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from January 1, 1934 to July 22, 1945.
(www.ustreas.gov/education/history/secretaries/hmorgenthaujr.html)
1968 Feb 7, The Arthur Miller play "Price" premiered in NYC.
(www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/arthur_miller_timeline.html)
1968 Feb 7, North Vietnamese used 11 Soviet-built light tanks to overrun the US Special Forces camp at Lang Vei at the end of an 18-hour long siege.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1971 Feb 7, Switzerland voted to introduce female suffrage at the federal but not the cantonal level.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(AP, 2/7/01)
1974 Feb 7, Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" opened in movie theaters.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0071230/combined)
1974 Feb 7, The island nation of Grenada won independence from Britain. This included the northern islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(AP, 2/7/97)(SSFC, 12/11/05, p.F4)
1975 Feb 7, Pres. Edward H. Levi (1911-2000), former president of the Univ. of Chicago, began serving as the attorney general under Pres. Ford.
(WSJ, 3/13/00, p.A46)(http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/00/000308.levi-nyt.html)
1978 Feb 7, Ethiopia mounted a counter attack against Somalia.
(HN, 2/7/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden_War)
1979 Feb 7, Josef Mengele (b.1911), Nazi concentration camp doctor and medical experimenter, accidentally drowned in Bertioga, Brazil. He was secretly buried in another man's grave in Brazil. [See Jun 6, 1985] In 1985 his identity was confirmed by DNA. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele)
1980 Feb 7, A fire in Brooklyn killed Elizabeth Kinsey (27) and her 5 children. In 1981 three men were later convicted of arson and 6 murders. In 2015 the convictions were overturned. Two of men had been paroled in 2012 and a third died in prison in 1989.
(http://tinyurl.com/z7ysmxp)(SFC, 12/17/15, p.A12)
1983 Feb 7, Elizabeth H. Dole was sworn in as the first female secretary of transportation by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court.
(AP, 2/7/03)
1983 Feb 7, Iran opened an invasion in the southeast of Iraq.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1984 Feb 7, Space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart went on the first untethered space walk.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1985 Feb 7, "New York, New York" became the official anthem of NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985)
1985 Feb 7, US drug agent Enrique “Kiki" Camarena Salazar was tortured and killed at a house in Guadalajara in the presence of a half-dozen top Mexican officials. Mexican authorities found his body on March 6 at a ranch east of Guadalajara. In 1992 Ruben Zuno Arce, the brother-in-law of former president Luis Echeverria, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 1989 Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo was arrested for complicity in the murder along with drug charges and sentenced to 40 years in prison. In 2000 Gallardo received a 2nd 40-year sentence for smuggling and bribery.
(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A10)(SFC, 8/12/00, p.A11)
1986 Feb 7, US female Figure Skating championship was won by Debi Thomas.
(http://tinyurl.com/nuoe4)
1986 Feb 7, Haitian President-for-Life Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier was ousted from power and fled his country, ending 28 years of family rule. He fled to France with his wife and mother. Henri Namphy became leader of Haiti. Duvalier and his cronies reportedly embezzled some $500 million during his last decade of rule.
(TMC, 1994, p.1986)(SFC,12/31/97, p.A17)(AP, 2/7/97)(WSJ, 4/16/03, p.A1)
1986 Feb 7, The Philippines held a presidential election marred by charges of fraud against the incumbent, Ferdinand E. Marcos. Corazon Aquino defeated incumbent dictator Ferdinand Marcos but fraudulent returns gave the election to Marcos.
(AP, 2/7/06)
1988 Feb 7, Leslie Manigat was sworn in as Haiti's president. However, he lost power the following June.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1989 Feb 7, Bowing to public outrage, both US houses of Congress voted to kill their scheduled 51 percent pay increase.
(AP, 2/7/99)
1989 Feb 7, In Argentina devaluation caused a wild panic in the financial district of Buenos Aires.
(www.studybuddy.nl/english/start.html)
1990 Feb 7, An 811-foot tanker, the American Trader, spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of Alaskan crude oil off the coast of Huntington Beach, Calif.
(AP, 2/7/00)
1990 Feb 7, Judith Clancy (b.1950), SF artist, died of cancer.
(www.undo.net/cgi-bin/undo/pressrelease/pressrelease.pl?id=1095157331)
1990 Feb 7, In Pakistan riots broke out between rival political parties and 22 people were hurt.
(http://tinyurl.com/htbtm)
1990 Feb 7, The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic annulled the acts of annexation.
(LHC, 2/7/03)
1990 Feb 7, The Soviet Union's Communist Party agreed to let other political parties compete for control of the country, thereby giving up its monopoly on power.
(AP, 2/7/00)
1991 Feb 7, US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and General Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left for a visit to the Gulf War zone.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1991 Feb 7, The Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide was sworn in as Haiti’s first democratically elected president.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1992 Feb 7, Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson testified at his rape trial in Indianapolis that his accuser, a Miss Black America contestant, had consented to having sex with him.
(AP, 2/7/02)
1992 Feb 7, In Texas Robert Moreno Ramos used a hammer to kill his 42-year-old wife Leticia, their 7-year-old daughter Abigail and 3-year-old son Jonathan at their home in Progreso. He remarried three days later. In 1993 Ramos was convicted and sentenced to death. Ramos was executed on Nov. 14, 2018.
(http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/cases/1-05.html)(SFC, 11/16/18, p.A7)
1992 Feb 7, The Maastricht Treaty to integrate Europe was signed in Maastricht by the Foreign and Finance Ministers of the Member States. Upon its entry into force on 1 November 1993 during the Delors Commission, it created the three pillars structure of the European Union and led to the creation of the single European currency, the euro.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty)
1992 Feb 7, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and French President Francois Mitterrand signed a cooperation treaty in Paris.
(AP, 2/7/02)
1993 Feb 7, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown acknowledged on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he'd failed to pay Social Security taxes for a domestic worker.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1994 Feb 7, President Clinton sent Congress his $1.5 trillion budget plan, declaring cuts in hundreds of programs would achieve a deficit-reduction record unequaled since President Truman's administration.
(AP, 2/7/99)
1995 Feb 7, Ramzi Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, was arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan, after two years as a fugitive.
(AP, 2/7/00)
1996 Feb 7, During a Central America tour, Pope John Paul the Second received a warm welcome in Nicaragua, his first visit there since 1983.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1996 Feb 7, Tamil rebels attacked Sri Lankan troops in the eastern part of the island nation. They killed 11 and lost 15 of their own fighters. The Colombo suicide bombing of last week killed 83.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-1)
1997 Feb 7, Mindful of Boris Yeltsin's ailments, President Clinton agreed to shift their March summit meeting from the United States to Helsinki, Finland.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1997 Feb 7, The Air Force suspended all its flights in restricted training areas on the East Coast after two close calls between National Guard jets and civilian airliners.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1997 Feb 7, The first day of the Chinese New Year. The year of the rat ended and the year of the ox, 4695, began.
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.7)(SFC, 2/8/97, p.A17)
1998 Feb 7, The Winter Olympic Games opened in Nagano, Japan.
(AP, 2/7/99)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported that the Axial Seamount undersea volcano off the coast of the Pacific Northwest was erupting 5,000 feet below sea level.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported that the 8,000 Sq. mile Larsen B ice sheet in Antarctica was breaking up due to rising global temperatures.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported that over 1200 Hooker’s sea lion pups had died in the sub-Antarctic islands south of New Zealand from an unknown disease.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, Novelist Lawrence Sanders died at age 78. His debut thriller “The Anderson Tapes" launched his career, and his 38th book was due later this month.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D8)
1998 Feb 7, In Australia over 1000 defense force personnel were called to help clean up parts of the Northern Territory where the worst floods in 40 years resulted from the overflowing Katherine River.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, Falco (40), Austrian born pop singer, died while on vacation in an auto crash in the Dominican Republic. His hits included “Der Kommissar," “Rock Me Amadeus," and “Vienna Calling."
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.D8)
1999 Feb 7, Delegates at the Kosovo peace talks agreed on principles that would keep the province within Yugoslavia for at least 3 more years.
(WSJ, 2/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 7, In Germany the Christian Democrats won elections in Hesse state elections putting the Schroeder government short of a majority in the Bundesrat upper house.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A10)
1999 Feb 7, In Indonesia a passenger ship sank between Borneo and Sumatra with 332 people aboard. 19 were reported rescued.
(SFC, 2/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Feb 7, In Jordan King Hussein (63) officially died from Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was succeeded by his eldest son, who takes the throe as Abdullah II. In 2008 “Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace," by Avi Shlaim was published.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A1)(AP, 2/7/00)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.88)(AP, 1/23/13)
1999 Feb 7, In Mexico the state governorship election in Baja California Sur elected Leonel Cota of the PRD to a landslide victory. The PRD lost in Guerrero and clamed fraud and campaign spending violations.
(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A8)(WSJ, 2/09/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 7, Serbian police seized ICN Pharmaceuticals in Belgrade.
(WSJ, 2/8/99, p.A1,19)
1999 Feb 7, In Zimbabwe Pres. Mugabe suggested that the supreme court resign. He defended the actions of the army which had arrested and tortured 2 journalists.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A10)
2000 Feb 7, With an astonishing comeback to win the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Tiger Woods gained his sixth straight PGA Tour victory, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1948 to win six in a row.
(AP, 2/7/01)
2000 Feb 7, Pres. Clinton proposed a $1.84 trillion budget and called for using a projected surplus to strengthen Medicare and health insurance.
(SFC, 2/7/00, p.A3)
2000 Feb 7, An apparent team of computer hackers shut the Yahoo web site down with a "denial-of-service" attack that mimicked millions of phantom users.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A1)(AP, 2/7/01)
2000 Feb 7, Doug Henning, Canadian-born magician, died in Los Angeles at age 52 from liver cancer.
(SFC, 2/9/00, p.C5)(AP, 2/7/01)
2000 Feb 7, In Chechnya Russian forces reported that hundreds of rebels had been killed over the last 2 days near the villages of Katyr-Yurt and Shaami-Yurt.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
2000 Feb 7, In Croatia Stipe Mesic (65) was elected president over Drazen Budisa (51) by a 56.2 to 43.8% margin.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
2000 Feb 7, In England Afghan hijackers at Stansted released 8 passengers with 157 still trapped on the plane.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb 7, In Indonesia 7 people were killed in Aceh province in clashed between rebels and security forces.
(SFC, 2/9/00, p.C3)
2000 Feb 7, Israeli jets launched air attacks deep into Lebanon. Power was knocked out at Baalbek, headquarters of the Hezbollah, and at Beirut and Tripoli. 18 civilians were injured.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb 7, Yugoslav Defense Minister Pavle Bulatovic (51) was gunned down in a Belgrade soccer club restaurant and died later in a hospital.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A12)(AP, 2/7/01)
2000 Feb 7, The UN Security Council voted to expand the peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone from 6,000 to 11,100.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
2001 Feb 7, The Senate voted to release $582 million in dues owed the United Nations.
(AP, 2/7/02)
2001 Feb 7, The space shuttle Atlantis took off with the Destiny module, a laboratory compartment, for the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.A3)
2001 Feb 7, In Washington Robert Pickett (47), an accountant with a history of mental illness, was shot in the leg by a Secret Service agent after brandishing a hand gun outside the White House gates.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 7, Dale Evans (born in 1912 as Frances Octavia Smith), singer and wife of Roy Rogers, died at age 88. Her compositions included "Happy Trails" and "The Bible Tells Me So."
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C2)(NW, 12/31/01, p.110)
2001 Feb 7, Anne Morrow Lindbergh (b.1906), wife of Charles Lindbergh, died at age 94. In 1955 she authored "Gift From the Sea," a meditation on women’s lives in the 20th century. In 1999 Susan Hertog authored her biography "Anne Morrow Lindbergh."
(WSJ, 11/29/99, p.A26)(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C2)(NW, 12/31/01, p.108)
2001 Feb 7, Pres. Aristide took power in Haiti for a 2nd term and offered a series of national reforms with plans for new schools, roads, electricity systems and an independent court in each of the country’s 565 townships.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C3)(AP, 2/11/04)
2001 Feb 7, In Israel Ariel Sharon signaled an end to the peace process begun in 1993 in Oslo and planned something in the spirit of Oslo on an interim level.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.A12)
2002 Feb 7, Pres. Bush met with Israel’s PM Sharon and said he would continue to press the Palestinian Authority to crack down on terrorism. Bush rebuffed a plea to sever ties with Arafat.
(SFC, 2/8/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 2/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 7, The Bush administration allowed Geneva accords to cover Taliban fighters but not members of al Qaeda.
(SFC, 2/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 7, A US federal court ruled that it is unconstitutional to sentence a felon to 25 years to life for shoplifting, which was allowed under the California “three strikes law."
(SFC, 2/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 7, Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling insisted to skeptical lawmakers that he knew of nothing improper about the complex web of partnerships that brought down the company.
(AP, 2/7/03)
2002 Feb 7, Authorities in Oklahoma captured the last of four escaped prison inmates from Texas who'd been on the run for more than a week.
(AP, 2/7/03)
2002 Feb 7, In Liberia rebel forces, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, attacked Klay Junction 25 miles north of Monrovia.
(SFC, 2/9/02, p.A3)
2003 Feb 7, President Bush courted the leaders of France and China in an uphill struggle to win U.N. backing for war with Iraq.
(AP, 2/7/04)
2003 Feb 7, The US moved its terror alert status to orange, the 2nd highest level. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the government had received intelligence information, corroborated by multiple sources, that Osama bin Laden's terror organization sought to attack Americans at home or abroad during the annual hajj pilgrimage to the holy Saudi city of Mecca.
(AP, 2/8/03)
2003 Feb 7, Garry Kasparov (39), chess master, played to a 3-3 tie against the Deep Junior computer program.
(SFC, 2/8/03, p.A2)
2003 Feb 7, Tom Christerson (71), the longest-living recipient of a fully self-contained artificial heart, died at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky., after 512 days on the AbioCor.
(AP, 2/7/04)
2003 Feb 7, Chechen rebel attacks and land mines killed 10 soldiers and police over the last 24 hours.
(AP, 2/8/03)
2003 Feb 7, In Bogota, Colombia, a car bomb tore through the El Nogal social club, killing 36 people, wounding 162. FARC rebels were blamed.
(AP, 2/8/03)(SFC, 2/8/03, p.A12)(AP, 2/7/04)
2003 Feb 7, Three Tamil Tiger rebels blew up their boat, killing themselves, after they were found trying to smuggle an anti-aircraft gun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition into Sri Lanka.
(AP, 2/7/03)
2004 Feb 7, John Kerry scored decisive wins in Michigan and Washington state Democratic presidential primaries.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2004 Feb 7, In Haiti police reinforcements fought bloody battles with gunmen as they tried to retake Gonaives from rebels who seized it. At least 7 police and 2 militants were killed.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2004 Feb 7, An Israeli helicopter fired a missile into a car traveling in a crowded Gaza City street, killing Aziz Mahmoud Shami, a leader of the militant Islamic Jihad group and a 12-year-old boy on his way to school. The attack wounded 10 Palestinians, three of them critically.
(AP, 2/7/04)
2004 Feb 7, In northern Kenya tribal fighting between cattle rustlers and herdsmen killed at least 13 people, including three children.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Feb 7, Nearly 400 members of Yasser Arafat's ruling Fatah Party resigned to protest what they call corruption and bad leadership within the group.
(AP, 2/7/04)
2004 Feb 7, Sri Lanka's president dissolved parliament, paving the way for elections nearly three years ahead of schedule.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2005 Feb 7, Pres. Bush proposed a $2.57 trillion budget that would slash domestic programs including entitlements such as Medicaid, farm subsidies and veterans benefits. The budget would worsen federal deficits by $42 billion over the next five years.
(SFC, 2/8/05, p.A1)(AP, 2/7/06)
2005 Feb 7, Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, the most notorious figure in the sex scandal that rocked the Boston Archdiocese, was convicted of repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at his church during the 1980s. Shanley was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2005 Feb 7, IBM, Toshiba and Sony disclosed the architectural design of a new, jointly developed, multi-core processor called the Cell.
(Econ, 2/12/05, p.77)(www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2972427392.html)
2005 Feb 7, Australia's central bank warned that interest rates, stable at 5.25 percent since December 2003, may be raised within months amid signs of renewed inflationary pressures.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, Cuba began an island-wide ban on smoking in public places such as stores, theaters, and office buildings.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, In England and Wales new laws came into effect that allow pubs, clubs and other drinking venues to apply to stay open 24 hours a day.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, Ellen MacArthur (28) of Britain completed her solo sail around the world in just over 71 days and 14 hours, shaving 32 hours off the previous record.
(AP, 2/8/05)
2005 Feb 7, The EU head office called for closer coordination among all member governments to hunt down and prosecute those illegally spreading unsolicited e-mails, or spam, across the 25-nation bloc.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, Insurgents struck at Iraqi police forces with a suicide bomb, a car bomb and mortars in the cities of Mosul and Baqouba, killing 31 people.
(AP, 2/7/05)(SFC, 2/8/05, p.A6)
2005 Feb 7, US troops manning a checkpoint found 4 Egyptian technicians who had been kidnapped the previous day in Baghdad, freeing them and arresting some of the abductors.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, John Githongo, Kenya president's adviser on corruption, stepped down. The US in response quickly suspended $2.5 million in funding for anti-corruption work.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Feb 7, Pakistan, as part of a peace deal in south Waziristan, paid 4 tribal militants a total of $842,000 so they could pay back money received from al Qaeda to fight Pakistani troops.
(WSJ, 2/10/05, p.A10)
2005 Feb 7, In the Philippines hundreds of armed followers of a jailed former Muslim rebel leader attacked government troops and occupied at least one army detachment on violent southern Jolo island, sparking clashes that killed at least 12 soldiers.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, A Saudi woman was beheaded after she was convicted of murdering her mother-in-law. Noura bint Khalaf al-Harbi was found guilty of setting her mother-in-law, Noura bint Salem al-Harbi, on fire as she slept following a dispute.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, Spain launched an immigrant amnesty program. As many as 80,000 new residency permits were expected.
(WSJ, 2/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Feb 7, In Sri Lanka E. Koushalyan, the LTTE's political wing leader for the eastern province, was killed in an ambush along with four other senior rebels and former Tamil legislator Chandra Nehru. Military officials said they suspected the attack was carried out by a breakaway faction of the Tamil Tigers led by the former number two in the leadership, known as Karuna.
(AP, 2/8/05)(Econ, 2/26/05, p.40)
2005 Feb 7, Faure Gnassingbe was sworn in as president of Togo, two days after the death of his father.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan suspended the head of the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq and a senior official who dealt with contracts, following an independent investigation that accused them of misconduct.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, The freighter M/V Joekulfell sank in the North Atlantic off the Faeroe Islands, killing four crewmembers and leaving two others missing. Five were rescued by helicopter. The Samskip company owned the Isle of Man-flagged vessel. The vessel departed from the Latvian port of Liepaja and was headed to Iceland.
(AP, 2/8/05)(http://tinyurl.com/cdza7)
2006 Feb 7, The US Dept. of Defense submitted a budget request for $439.3 billion for FY 2007. This was over 7% more than for FY 2006.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.29)(http://tinyurl.com/rvmbl)
2006 Feb 7, US federal Judge Kathryn Ferguson penalized the law firm of Gilbert, Heintz & Randolph $13 million for conflicts of interest while working on the Congoleum asbestos bankruptcy, while at the same time representing some 10,000 people with asbestos claims against the New Jersey flooring manufacturer.
(WSJ, 4/24/06, p.B1)(http://tinyurl.com/lg4qf)
2006 Feb 7, Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach Rick Tocchet was charged with financing a nationwide gambling ring based out of New Jersey.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2006 Feb 7, SF Supervisor Chris Daly placed a resolution on the board’s consent calendar calling for the impeachment of Pres. Bush and VP Cheney.
(SFC, 2/8/06, p.B1)
2006 Feb 7, Alabama state officials reported four more rural Baptist churches following rash of suspected arsons that burned five others south of Birmingham last week [see Feb 3].
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Nevada’s State Gaming Control Board sent a letter to casinos expressing concern about “gangster rap."
(WSJ, 3/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Feb 7, General Motors Corp., under shareholder pressure to return to profitability, announced it is cutting in half its yearly dividend to $1 a share and reducing the salaries of its chairman and senior leadership team.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Microsoft said it will offer a new security service to PC users for $49.95 per year.
(SFC, 2/8/06, p.C3)
2006 Feb 7, In southern Afghanistan a suspected suicide bomber blew up a guard post outside police headquarters in Kandahar, killing 13 people and wounded 11.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In western Afghanistan a Turkish engineer, an Indian national and their driver were killed when a bomb struck their vehicle.
(AFP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, NATO peacekeepers exchanged fire with protesters who attacked their base in the second straight day of violent demonstrations in Afghanistan over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. One demonstrator was killed and dozens wounded.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Mario Condello (53), an Australian underworld figure due to face court on incitement to murder charges, was shot dead in his driveway overnight, bringing the toll in a gangland war to 28. Melbourne's gang war began in 1998 when self-styled "Godfather" Alphonse Gangitano, 40, was shot dead in his laundry.
(Reuters, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales asked the US to reconsider a proposed cut in anti-drug aid, and called on the world to strengthen drug-fighting alliances.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Indians from Brazil and four other South American countries called for the "resurrection" of an Indian nation, the 250th anniversary of the killing of a tribal chief by European soldiers.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, A British jury convicted firebrand Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri of inciting followers to kill non-Muslims in speeches at his London mosque, which has been linked to Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Officials in Canada announced an agreement to close 5 million acres in British Columbia’s Great Bear Rain Forest to logging. Loggers will be guaranteed a right to selectively cut in 10 million acres of the forest.
(SFC, 2/7/06, p.A6)
2006 Feb 7, An apparent gas explosion destroyed a two-story military barracks in Chechnya, killing at least two people and injuring 32.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, An aid group that provides food to tens of thousands of people in war-ravaged Chechnya suspended its operations after Chechen officials banned all Danish organizations because of the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Ramon Isaza (65), a founder of Colombia's anti-rebel paramilitary movement, laid down his weapon, ending nearly three decades of outlawed, jungle warfare. Isaza was joined by 990 fighters from his Medio Magdalena Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, handing over 754 weapons, 15 vehicles and abundant munitions.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Costa Rican electoral officials began counting votes by hand in a laborious effort to determine the winner of one of the country's closest presidential races in history.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In Germany Mounir el Motassadeq (31), a Moroccan convicted of belonging to a terrorist cell that included three Sept. 11 hijackers, was freed from prison after a federal court ruled he shouldn't be jailed with appeals still pending.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Haitians jammed polling stations as UN peacekeepers fanned out to guard the country's first presidential election in nearly six years.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In Indonesia scientists exploring an isolated jungle in remote Papua province reported the discovery of dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants, as well as mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, A prominent Iranian newspaper said it would hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Masked gunmen assassinated a Sunni Arab cleric who headed the city council in once-restive city of Fallujah, and two bombs exploded minutes apart near a central Baghdad square, killing at least seven people and wounding 20.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In Ivory Coast the UN was due to enforce sanctions on three political leaders judged to have blocked a peace process.
(Reuters, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Kuwait's new Emir Sheik Sabah Al Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah (76) turned to his brother, Sheik Nawwaf Al Ahmed Al Sabah (68), as the new crown prince and successor to the throne. Sheik Nasser Al Mohammed Al Sabah (65) was appointed PM and directed to form a new government.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, The owner of a Mexican newspaper in Nuevo Laredo said there will be no more investigative coverage of drug gangs, a day after the paper's offices were sprayed with bullets and a reporter hospitalized with five gunshots.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In Nepal Communist rebels killed at least seven security forces and wounded 15 in two overnight attacks. Government troops were given orders to shoot anyone who tries to disrupt municipal elections.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, A ship with 2,000 tons of donated rice from India arrived in North Korea. The Indian government has donated humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, to North Korea on nine occasions since 1995.
(AFP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Russia announced that it would pay off a big chunk of its sovereign debt ahead of schedule this year. Russia also announced plans to forgive $668 million owed to Moscow by 16 of the world’s highly indebted countries.
(WSJ, 2/8/06, p.A6)
2006 Feb 7, It was reported that Russia’s Yukos oil company, which says it owes $6.3 billion in back tax claims, has sold a 49 percent stake in Slovak pipeline operator Transpetrol for $105 million, to Russia’s Russneft oil company.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group said it would donate more than $800 million in corporate and private assets to charity as part of an apology for several recent scandals.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sri Lanka's former president (1994-2005), returned her expensive retirement gift, a 1.5 acre (0.68 hectare) area of land near the national parliament to the state, after legal action was filed against her.
(AFP, 2/8/06)
2007 Feb 7, The Washington Post reported that President George W. Bush has approved plans for the US Treasury Department to block US commercial bank transactions connected to Sudan's government, including those involving oil revenue.
(AFP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced its approval of sales of Alli, a reduced-strength version of the prescription diet drug Xenical. The first diet pill for over the counter sale hit stores June 15.
(AP, 2/8/07)(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 7, Indictments were filed in New Jersey against 3 US Army Reserve officers for taking part in a bid-rigging scam that steered millions of dollars for Iraq reconstruction to a contractor in exchange for cash, luxury cars and jewelry.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A12)
2007 Feb 7, In SF Mayor Gavin Newsom met with Lithuania’s Pres. Valdas Adamkus at the Fairmont Hotel following an address at the World Affairs Council. Pres. Adamkus, accompanied by a Lithuanian business delegation, was here for a one week visit seeking US trade opportunities and potential investors.
(www.president.lt/en/news.full/7476)
2007 Feb 7, Blowing snow and intense cold was blamed for two more deaths, a total of 13 nationwide since the cold settled in, and kept schools closed for a second and in some cases a third day across much of Ohio and West Virginia.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Chicago Equity Office Properties (EOP), America’s largest commercial landlord, accepted a cash offer from The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm that valued the company at nearly $39 billion (including debt).
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.80)
2007 Feb 7, Austrian authorities said they have uncovered a major international child pornography ring involving more than 2,360 suspects from 77 countries, including hundreds in the United States, who paid to view videos of young children being sexually abused.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, A twin-engine plane crashed in Brazil’s Amazon jungle, killing all six people aboard.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Six people were hurt by a third letter bomb in three days aimed at British motoring-related organizations and police are investigating if the attacks are part of a coordinated campaign.
(Reuters, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Aron Groiss, director of research at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, presented a study in London saying textbooks used in Iran's schools are instilling students with hatred toward the West, especially the United States, and urging them to become "martyrs" in a global holy war against countries perceived to be enemies of Islam.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Canada’s Nortel Networks Corp. said it will slash 2,900 jobs, or 8.5 percent of its workforce, over the next two years and shift another 1,000 employees to lower-cost locations like China, India and Mexico as North America's biggest maker of telephone equipment struggles to shore up its profits.
(Reuters, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In central China an overcrowded passenger vehicle returning from a wedding party plunged off a cliff, killing 16 members of an extended family.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Colombia's top court ruled that gay couples, who have lived together for more than 2 years, should have the same rights to shared assets as heterosexual couples. The decision by the Constitutional Court marked the first recognition of gay couples' rights in Colombia.
(AP, 2/9/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.34)
2007 Feb 7, Georgia signed a regional cooperation agreement with Azerbaijan and Turkey which included plans for a railway connecting the three countries.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/2gbbgg)
2007 Feb 7, At least 15 people were killed in attacks across Iraq, including two employees of the government-funded Iraqi Media Network in Baghdad. A female census worker was shot to death while she was riding to work with her husband in the northern city of Mosul. A Sea Knight CH-46 helicopter went down northwest of Baghdad, the fifth helicopter lost in Iraq in just over two weeks. All 7 aboard were killed. Four US Marines were killed in fighting in Anbar province from wounds sustained due to enemy action in two separate incidents. Another 3 US soldiers were killed in fighting Anbar province.
(AP, 2/7/07)(AP, 2/8/07)(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 7, An Italian judge ordered a U.S. soldier to stand trial in absentia for the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Baghdad on March 4, 2005.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Michel Niaucel, a French diplomat with the European Union in Ivory Coast, was shot to death in his home overnight. Niaucel was in charge of West Africa security operations for the EU.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Japan's PM Shinzo Abe pledged to regain four disputed northern islands from Russia, saying it was time to end the bickering between Tokyo and Moscow over the prime fishing grounds.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The US Embassy issued a travel advisory saying violent crime was on the increase in Kenya.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.G2)
2007 Feb 7, The Mozambique government said floods have killed 29 people and wrecked thousands of homes after torrential rain and hurricanes swept through the country in the past two weeks.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Gunmen seized a French oil worker in Nigeria's restive southern petroleum-producing region. Kidnappers there also seized a woman from the Philippines. Kidnappers released a British oil-worker after the man taken in a raid last month fell ill. President Olusegun Obasanjo called for a high-level meeting to address the violence.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Russia's defense minister laid out an ambitious plan for building new intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and possibly aircraft carriers.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Saudi Arabia rival Palestinian leaders began open-ended talks in Mecca optimistic that they could reach an agreement to end their bloody street battles and resume the peace process with Israel.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Somalia doctors said a cholera outbreak has killed more than 115 people and hospitalized 724 in towns where people were forced to use contaminated water from a flooded river.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In South Africa Chin’s President Hu Jintao promised to increase imports from Africa, responding to fears about the trade deficit that increased as China pumped unprecedented aid, investment and loans into the poor but resource-rich continent.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The Spanish Civil Guard said authorities have arrested 52 people in a major crackdown on a suspected ring of antiquities looters from dozens of sites in southern Spain.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Sri Lanka Selliah Parameswar, a Hindu priest who welcomed President Mahinda Rajapakse to a former guerrilla bastion, was dragged out of his house in Batticaloa district and killed by a group of unidentified gunmen. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blamed a breakaway group allegedly linked to government forces.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Officials in Venezuela confirmed that Venezuela will buy whatever legal products Bolivia can make from coca leaf as part of an effort to wean farmers from the cocaine industry.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 7, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, under mounting pressure over a world record-busting inflation rate and escalating strike action in the public sector, sacked his finance minister. A union chief said 60 Zimbabwean junior doctors have been sacked from Harare's main hospital after going on strike in December demanding salary hikes.
(AFP, 2/7/07)
2008 Feb 7, The US Congress passed an emergency plan that rushed rebates of $600 to $1,200 to most taxpayers and $300 checks to disabled veterans, the elderly and other low-income people. President Bush indicated he would sign the measure.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, The US said it was barring 10 leading Kenyan politicians from entering the US, the first time Washington has blamed them for the postelection violence that has brought the African country to the brink of collapse.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
(SFC, 2/8/08, p.A1)
2008 Feb 7, US prosecutors said Merck will pay $671 million to settle claims it overcharged government health programs for 4 drugs and gave doctors fees and gifts to induce them to prescribe the drugs. The case was triggered when a sales manager filed suit in 2001 and a Louisiana doctor exposed overcharging.
(SFC, 2/8/08, p.C2)
2008 Feb 7, In Los Angeles a man barricaded himself in a house after telling police he had killed 3 relatives, then opened fire on a SWAT team, killing one officer and wounding another. Randall Simmons (51) was the first SWAT officer killed in the line of duty in the unit’s 41-year history.
(AP, 2/7/08)(SFC, 2/8/08, p.A4)
2008 Feb 7, In Port Wentworth, Georgia, an explosion and fire at a sugar refinery owned by Imperial Sugar, based in Sugar Land, Texas, left 11 people dead. Imperial had acquired Savannah Foods & Industries, the producer of Dixie Crystals, in 1997. The acquisition doubled the size of the company, making it the largest processor and refiner of sugar in the US.
(AP, 2/8/08)(SFC, 2/11/08, p.A10)(AP, 2/24/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Kirkwood, Missouri, a gunman stormed a council meeting, yelled "Shoot the mayor!" and opened fire, critically wounding Mayor Mike Swoboda (69), killing two police officers and three city officials. Swoboda died on Sep 6. Charles Le "Cookie" Thornton, who had lost a free-speech lawsuit against the St. Louis suburb 10 days earlier, was fatally shot by law enforcers. He had claimed in the past city leaders stifled and harassed him.
(AP, 2/8/08)(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A3)
2008 Feb 7, In Portsmouth, Ohio, William Michael Layne (56) stabbed his estranged wife in front of her 5th grade class and girl friend in an alley behind her home and then shot himself dead in a standoff with police. Both women were in critical condition.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomb targeting a NATO convoy left three soldiers lightly wounded in eastern Khost province. A bungled suicide attack hurt two civilians in southwestern Nimroz province.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, In eastern Algeria suspected Islamist militants gunned down eight police officers in a late night ambush outside the village of Ain R'Ghiya. In a separate morning attack, another officer was killed and one injured in the village of Boukalfa.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, A new security pact between Australia and Indonesia came into force at a ceremony in Perth attended by the foreign ministers of the at-times testy neighbors.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, Belize's opposition United Democratic Party won a landslide victory in general elections, ending PM Said Musa's 10 years in office. UDP leader Dean Barrow was to be sworn in as the country's first black prime minister the next day.
(AP, 2/8/08)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.44)
2008 Feb 7, Bolivia's foreign minister said that the world has an obligation to send aid to flood-ravaged areas, linking a disaster that has killed 49 people to global climate change.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) lowered interest rates from 5,75% to 5.5%.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.63)
2008 Feb 7, Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno issued a "solemn call" for a European peacekeeping force for Darfur refugees, to deploy as soon as possible. The president also said he was "ready to pardon" six French aid workers convicted in December of trying to kidnap more than 100 children they said were orphans from Darfur.
(AP, 2/7/08)(AFP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, Chile announced it will try to head off power rationing by cutting electrical voltage, distributing efficient light bulbs and extending daylight savings time.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Egypt at least 29 people, including children, were killed and 16 injured in a traffic pileup blamed on early morning fog southeast of Cairo.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Greece senior clergy elected Metropolitan Bishop Ieronymos of Thebes as the new leader of the powerful Orthodox Church to succeed the late Archbishop Christodoulos.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In western India Dynaneshwar Sathawane, a local leader of the ruling Congress party, was stripped, stoned and beaten to death by a mob during a rally of nearly 500 people in Maharashtra state.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 7, Experts said Iran's nuclear project has developed its own version of an advanced centrifuge to churn out enriched uranium much faster than its previous machines.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Iraq gunmen stormed a house near Baqouba, separated out the women and children inside and killed three brothers, all members of a US-backed neighborhood watch group. A roadside bomb killed three awakening council members and wounded eight others south of Baghdad. A truckload of weapons, ammunition and explosives were seized at an Iraqi police checkpoint at the entrance to Karbala. US troops captured an alleged Shiite militia leader and three other suspects in a raid south of Baghdad. 15 suspected militants were detained in sweeps through Sadr City, and one person was killed.
(AP, 2/7/08)(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, Israeli ground forces backed by warplanes exchanged fire with Hamas gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip, killing a teacher and six militants in escalating violence that is hobbling peace efforts. Israeli troops entered the town of Qabatiya before dawn to arrest an Islamic Jihad militant. Soldiers shot a mentally disabled man, Taysir Nazal (56), as he emerged from his home, in his legs. Nazal died from his wounds on Feb 14.
(AP, 2/7/08)(AP, 2/14/08)
2008 Feb 7, Authorities in Italy and the US conducted raids targeting dozens of alleged members of Mafia clans who controlled drug trafficking between the two sides of the Atlantic. A 169-page indictment in the US went back 3 decades and included at least 7 murders. The main targets in NY included 3 of the “five families" controlling organized crime in America: the Genovese, Bonanno and Gambino families.
(AP, 2/7/08)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.41)
2008 Feb 7, Libya’s National Oil Corp and Indonesia signed a deal for the north African state to supply the world's most populous Muslim nation with crude oil for the next 20 years.
(AFP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, Mexican soldiers seized nearly 10 tons of marijuana, a machine gun, scores of assault rifles and three grenades in a raid just across the border from Texas.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, NATO defense ministers held talks on Afghanistan in Lithuania. France agreed to help Canada in fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, Nepalese authorities arrested Amit Kumar, the alleged mastermind of a shadowy organ transplant operation in India that illegally removed hundreds of kidneys, sometimes from unwilling donors, at a jungle resort in southern Nepal (see Jan 30).
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, Pakistani police arrested two suspects in the suicide attack that killed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. A team from Scotland Yard returned to Pakistan to report the conclusions of their probe into the assassination. 3 men were killed and 13 others wounded when a bomb exploded in southwestern Baluchistan province.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, The OSCE’s election monitoring organization said that it will not observe Russia's presidential election next month because of the "severe restrictions" imposed by the Kremlin.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Sri Lanka government troops attacked rebel bunkers along the northern front lines, triggering gunbattles that killed 34 rebels and one soldier.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 7, Tanzania's PM Edward Lowassa and two Cabinet ministers resigned over a corruption scandal involving a contract with a nonexistent firm supposedly based in the US. Pres. Jakaya Kikwete dissolved the entire Cabinet as a result.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, Turkey’s lawmakers voted to approve a constitutional amendment allowing female students to enter universities wearing Islamic head scarves, a move that many secular Turks view as an attempt to impose religion on their daily lives.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, The WHO warned in a new report that the "tobacco epidemic" is growing and could claim 1 billion lives by the end of the century unless governments dramatically step up efforts to curb smoking.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2009 Feb 7, San Francisco ushered in the Year of the Ox with its annual Chinese New Year parade.
(SSFC, 2/8/09, p.B1)
2009 Feb 7, Blossom Dearie (b.1926), jazz pianist, singer and songwriter, died in NYC.
(SFC, 2/11/09, p.B7)
2009 Feb 7, In Australia searing temperatures and wind blasts created a firestorm that swept across a swath of the country's Victoria state. On “Black Saturday" some 2298 homes were destroyed with a death toll of 173. The town of Marysville and several hamlets in the Kinglake district, both about 50 miles (100 km) north of Melbourne, were utterly devastated. In 2012 James Sokaluk was jailed for at least 14 years for starting a blaze that killed 10 people and destroyed more than 150 homes at Churchill.
(AFP, 2/8/09)(Econ, 1/14/12, p.61)(AFP, 4/27/12)
2009 Feb 7, In Bolivia President Evo Morales and thousands of supporters celebrated the new constitution as it took effect, saying the new document will enshrine indigenous rights and end centuries of oppression. It renamed the former republic the “Plurinational State of Bolivia," effective as of Jan 22, 2010.
(AP, 2/7/09)(SSFC, 1/20/13, p.P3)
2009 Feb 7, A Bolivian woman died from an injection of urine allegedly administered by her friend as a form of health therapy. Investigating prosecutor Oscar Flores later said that Gabriela Ascarrunz (35) died of an "infection caused by urine that was injected by fashion designer Monica Schultz."
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Brazil 4 people at the rear of a plane that crashed in a muddy Amazon river managed to open an emergency door and swim to safety as the aircraft sank, dragging 24 others to their death.
(AP, 2/8/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Ecuador President Rafael Correa ordered the expulsion of a top US diplomat he accused of suspending $340,000 in annual aid because Ecuador would not allow the US to veto appointments to the anti-smuggling police.
(AP, 2/7/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Ethiopia Brian Adkins (25) was killed in his home in Addis Ababa. He was serving as a consular officer at the US Embassy there. A suspect was arrested on Feb 11.
(AP, 2/11/09)(www.huffingtonpost.com/news/africa)
2009 Feb 7, In Antananarivo, Madagascar, at least 28 people were killed by security forces during anti-government protests. Arrest warrants were issued the next day for those deemed responsible for the political violence. A week of violence left up to 100 people dead.
(SFC, 2/9/09, p.A2)(Econ, 3/21/09, p.50)
2009 Feb 7, Officials in Morocco said heavy rains have claimed 24 lives and forced 2,000 people to be evacuated over the past week.
(AFP, 2/7/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Gaza Hasan al-Hijazi, who was shot by three masked men. Hamas later issued a statement calling the killing a "mistake."
(AP, 2/14/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Venezuela tens of thousands of protesters marched in Caracas to oppose a constitutional amendment that could allow President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election indefinitely.
(AP, 2/7/09)
2010 Feb 7, The New Orleans Saints capped off an outstanding season with an upset over the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17, in Super Bowl XLIV. The Saints' victory over Indianapolis was watched by more than 106 million people, surpassing the 1983 finale of "M-A-S-H" to become the most-watched program in US television history.
(AP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 7, In Daly City, Ca., a fight at the Little Caesars Pizza near King and Callan left Jessy Wiley (21) of South San Francisco dead. In 2012 three suspected Norteno gang members were convicted in relation to Wiley’s death.
(SFC, 3/27/12, p.A2)
2010 Feb 7, In Connecticut an explosion during a test of natural gas lines at the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Middletown killed at least 5 workers. The 620-megawatt plant was being built to produce energy primarily using natural gas.
(SFC, 2/8/10, p.A6)
2010 Feb 7, In Afghanistan 2 two British soldiers were killed by an explosion in Sangin in Helmand Province, taking the death toll in Afghanistan to 255 since 2001. This raised Britain's death toll to that of the Falklands war.
(AFP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 7, In Canada Air Force Col. Russell Williams (46) was arrested in Ottawa and charged with first degree murder in the deaths of 2 women. He was also charged in the sexual assaults of 2 other women. In late April Williams was also charged with 82 counts of burglary. On Oct 18 Williams pleaded guilty to more than 80 crimes over more than two years, including murder, sexual assault and burglary.
(SFC, 2/9/10, p.A2)(SFC, 4/30/10, p.A2)(Reuters, 10/19/10)
2010 Feb 7, Andre Kolingba (73), former Central African Republic general and coup leader (1981-1993), died in Paris.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Kolingba)(AFP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 7, Costa Rica held elections and elected its first woman president. Laura Chinchilla (50), a mother and a social conservative, who opposed abortion and gay marriage, won 47% of the vote after campaigning to continue free market policies. She served as vice president under current Pres. Oscar Arias. Otton Solis of the Citizens Action Party, got 25% of the votes. He and the other main rival, Libertarian Otto Guevara, quickly conceded defeat. Chinchilla’s National Liberation Party was the largest in congress, but held only 24 of 57 seats.
(AP, 2/7/10)(AP, 2/8/10)(Econ, 2/13/10, p.41)(Econ, 5/8/10, p.40)
2010 Feb 7, Newspapers said Toyota will recall 300,000 Prius hybrid vehicles because of brake flaws. Toyota said that it will soon announce plans to deal with braking problems in its prized Prius hybrid amid reports it has decided to issue a recall for the latest model in Japan, a possible new embarrassment for the world's biggest automaker.
(AFP, 2/7/10)(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, India again successfully test-fired a nuclear-capable missile that can hit targets across much of Asia and the Middle East. It was the fourth test of the Agni III missile.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered his country's atomic agency to begin enriching uranium to a higher level, a move that's likely to deepen international suspicion over the country's intentions for its nuclear program.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, Iran's state media said Tehran has arrested seven people linked to the US-funded Radio Farda and accused some them of working for American spy agencies.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, A Libyan court dropped a case against Rashid Hamdani, a Swiss businessman for alleged illegal business activities, clearing the way for him to go home after 19 months stuck in the country.
(AFP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, Ukrainians voted between two presidential candidates in a run-off between PM Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich which could push the country into a fresh bout of instability. Yanukovich ended with 48.95% to Tymoshenko's 45.47%, a lead of 3.48 percentage points or some 888,000 votes.
(Reuters, 2/7/10)(AP, 2/10/10)
2011 Feb 7, A federal jury in Baton Rouge, La., convicted Wen Chyu Liu (74), a former Dow Chemical research scientist, of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft and perjury.
(SFC, 2/8/11, p.A6)
2011 Feb 7, Internet company AOL Inc. said it is buying news hub Huffington Post in a $315 million deal that represents a bold bet on the future of online news. Founded in 2005, Huffington Post is owned by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer and a group of other investors. The site attracts 25 million monthly visitors.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Filmmaker Michael Moore sued Harvey and Bob Weinstein, accusing the brothers of "Hollywood accounting tricks" and "financial deception" that cheated him out of at least $2.7 million in profits from the hit documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004).
(Reuters, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber killed one person and wounded five others in Kandahar city, hours after attackers gunned down a local government chief in the country's volatile eastern borderlands. David Hillman, a retired customs officer who had worked for the US government for 30 years, died in the blast at the Inland Customs Warehouse in Kandahar. Giles Duley (39), British photographer, was severely injured in a roadside bombing during a foot patrol in Kandahar province. He underwent multiple amputations and was flown back to Britain for further treatment.
(AP, 2/7/11)(AP, 2/9/11)(AFP, 2/12/11)
2011 Feb 7, Algerian authorities announced they have banned an opposition rally set for the capital on Feb 12 to call for an end to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's rule. Pro-democracy demonstrators said they will go ahead with the planned march.
(AFP, 2/7/11)(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Western Australia firefighters battled two wildfires, water bombing them from above as they tried to stop their spread. One on the outskirts of Perth destroyed at least 40 homes and left a firefighter injured.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Bangladesh authorities raided the headquarters of the opposition party in the capital as they tried to end the group's strike to protest spiraling commodity prices and crime. In other parts of the country, police fired tear gas and arrested protesters.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Brazil a massive fire consumed the warehouses where Rio de Janeiro's samba groups store the props and costumes for Brazil's largest Carnival parade.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that scientists in Britain have successfully tested a vaccine which could work against all known flu strains.
(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Cambodian and Thai troops clashed for a 4th straight day as the UN chief called for "maximum restraint" in a border dispute that has claimed 7 lives and displaced thousands. On April 6 the London-based Cluster Munition Coalition said Thailand's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva confirmed the army had fired 155mm cluster shells into Cambodia.
(AFP, 2/7/11)(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Feb 7, Egypt's embattled regime announced a 15% increase in salaries and pensions in the latest attempt to defuse popular anger amid protests demanding Pres. Mubarak's ouster. The regime appeared confident in its ability for the moment to ride out the unprecedented storm of unrest, and maintain its grip on power, at least until September elections. Mubarak's new cabinet held its first full meeting since an uprising started nearly two weeks ago.
(AP, 2/7/11)(Reuters, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Egypt Wael Ghonim (30), a Google Inc. marketing manager, was released from 12 days of detention and gave an emotionally charged television interview, sobbing at times over those who have been killed. He dubbed the protests "the revolution of the youth of the Internet." He was a key organizer of the online campaign that sparked the first protest on Jan 25.
(AP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, Fiji’s former President Ratu Josefa Iloilo (91) died. The tribal chief served as president from 2000 to 2009 and backed the 2006 military takeover of the country.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 7, France-based Alcatel-Lucent unveiled technology that reduces the filing cabinet size of a wireless base station to that of Rubik’s cube.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.70)
2011 Feb 7, In Haiti President Rene Preval’s chief of staff said Preval will stay in office for three more months as his country chooses a successor in a delayed election. An emergency law passed by members of Preval's former party in an expiring Senate allowed him to remain in office for up to three more months because his 2006 inauguration was delayed. The Haitian government issued a new passport to former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, enabling him to end his exile in South Africa and return to Haiti.
(AP, 2/7/11)(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, Iran unveiled four new domestically produced “research" satellites as part of a space program that's worrying other nations. Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran is mass-producing a ballistic missile which can travel at more than three times the speed of sound and hit targets on the high seas.
(AP, 2/7/11)(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Iran and Turkey said they plan to triple two-way annual trade to $30 billion by 2015, ahead of a visit by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Israel Jerusalem officials pushed forward plans to build new Jewish housing in an Arab neighborhood in the city's eastern sector, drawing swift condemnation from Palestinians who see it as encroaching on land they seek for a future state.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Japan's PM Naoto Kan led a large rally demanding the return of the southern Kuril islands held by Russia since the end of World War II and calling the recent visit there by Russia's president an outrage. Japan has designated Feb. 7 as "Northern Territories Day," saying that a treaty dating back to that day in 1855 supports its claim to the islands.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Mexico 3 people related to Josefina Reyes, a human-rights activist who was assassinated last year in the Juarez valley, were forced from their car southeast of Ciudad Juarez. Josefina had led protests against alleged abuses by Mexican soldiers in the valley.
(AP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, In the Philippines Pres. Benigno Aquino III signed a proclamation granting amnesty to rebel soldiers who participated in military uprisings in 2003 and 2006.
(SSFC, 2/13/11, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/2azzq9m)
2011 Feb 7, RIA News reported that a Russian man, Yevgeny Anikin (27), has pleaded guilty in court to stealing $10 million from former Royal Bank of Scotland division World Pay in 2008 by hacking into accounts. "I want to say that I repent and fully admit my guilt," Anikin said in his final comments to the court in Novosibirsk in Siberia, where he was charged with theft.
(Reuters, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Spain Basque separatists launched a new political party they say rejects violence by the armed group ETA, in an unprecedented step designed to move the troubled region toward peace.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Sudan's Pres. Omar al-Bashir accepted a southern vote for independence in a referendum that is set to create Africa's newest state and open up a fresh period of uncertainty in the increasingly volatile region. The final results of the historic independence referendum showed that 98.83 percent had voted for secession.
(Reuters, 2/7/11)(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, Tunisia’s Ministry of Interior suspended the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD), the former ruling party.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.30)
2011 Feb 7, Zimbabweans chanting slogans from President Robert Mugabe's party trashed stalls owned by hawkers from elsewhere in Africa at a flea market in the capital, looting mobile phones, electrical goods and clothing.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2012 Feb 7, Rick Santorum won 3 victories in the race for the Republican presidential nomination by winning caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota and a primary in Missouri. Mitt Romney came in 3rd in Minnesota with 17% of the vote.
(SFC, 2/8/12, p.A6)(Econ, 2/11/12, p.32)
2012 Feb 7, The 9th Circuit Court in California struck down as unconstitutional the state's voter-passed ban on gay marriage, ruling 2-1 that it violates the rights of gay Californians.
(AP, 2/7/12)(SFC, 2/8/12, p.A1)
2012 Feb 7, The US Centers for Disease Control said smokers have twice the number of problems with their teeth than nonsmokers.
(SFC, 2/8/12, p.A6)
2012 Feb 7, Argentina's Pres. Cristina Fernandez accused Britain of "militarizing the South Atlantic" and said she would complain to the UN, as tension rises ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands war.
(Reuters, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, Australia imposed new travel bans and financial sanctions on Syrian leaders on as it stepped up actions to force an end to violence against Syria's civilian population.
(Reuters, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Jailed Bahraini activists ended a hunger strike after eight days of refusing to eat in protest at a new crackdown on demonstrations. A week-long rally called for by the Shiite-led opposition was concluded.
(AFP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, Bolivian officials threatened to prosecute leaders of coca growers who used whips a day earlier to drive away 4 unarmed members of a government coca eradication team.
(AP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, Swollen rivers in Bulgaria and Greece burst their banks, leaving dozens of homes underwater. The Maritsa River to overflow its banks, leaving dozens of homes under water in the city of Svilengrad near the Greek border. In Greece the river Evros burst its banks near the country's northeastern border with Bulgaria.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, German police arrested two men on allegations they were spying on Syrian opposition groups in Germany.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Iran's parliament decided to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning over a long list of accusations, including that he mismanaged the nation's economy.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Ministers from Iraq's Sunni-backed bloc ended their boycott of the Cabinet. Iraq executed 14 people, most of them Al-Qaeda members, bringing to at least 65 the number of executions so far this year.
(AP, 2/7/12)(AFP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, In Jamaica roughly 2,000 firearms were melted down in a blazing furnace as part of an effort designed to combat gun trafficking and corruption while reducing violent crime.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, The Maldives' first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed (44), resigned after a police mutiny described by his office as an attempted coup, capping weeks of political upheaval in the holiday paradise. Nasheed has faced three weeks of street protests stemming from the arrest of a senior judge. Vice President Mohamed Waheed, who had clashed with Nasheed over the chief justice's detention, was sworn in as the new head of state and he urged the population of 300,000 Sunni Muslims to remain calm.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Mexican navy personal detained suspect Francisco Alvarado Martagon as he attempted to drive past a military checkpoint near the city of Acayucan in a vehicle without license plates. He confessed to being a head lookout for the Zetas and mentioned two sites at local ranches that the Zetas allegedly used to dispose of bodies. The navy inspected the sites and over the next 24 hours found the buried, badly decomposed remains of 15 people.
(AP, 2/8/12)(AP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, The Mexican army found 73 Central American migrants in three houses near the US border and troops arrested 4 men suspected of planning to smuggle the people into Texas.
(AP, 2/9/12)
2012 Feb 7, In Nigeria explosions rocked an army barracks, a bridge and an air base in the northern city of Kaduna amid a wave of attacks blamed on Islamist group Boko Haram. One suicide bomber was reported killed.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani held talks with Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, on the 2nd day of an official visit expected to focus on Afghan peace efforts.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Somali pirates seized the MV Free Goddess, a Liberian-flagged Greek-owned ship and its crew of 21 Filipinos. They were held hostage by pirates for eight months until a payment of $2.3 million was made in ransom.
(AP, 10/12/12)
2012 Feb 7, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak arrived in Riyadh at the start of a two-day visit to the OPEC kingpin which comes as Seoul seeks to diversify its oil sources. Lee Myung-Bak held talks with Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and the head of Saudi state oil giant Aramco, Khalid al-Faleh. Saudi Arabia pledged to ensure a stable supply of oil to South Korea.
(AFP, 2/7/12)(AFP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, Swiss materials giant Glencore and mining firm Xstrata announced a vast merger, creating a $90 billion (€69 billion) group and the world’s 4th largest mining company.
(AFP, 2/7/12)(Econ, 2/11/12, p.65)
2012 Feb 7, Syrian forces renewed their assault on the flashpoint city of Homs as Russia's foreign minister stressed the need for reform and dialogue during talks in Damascus with President Bashar Assad about the country's escalating violence. Activists reported that at least 15 people, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed in violence across the country. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council said it is pulling its ambassadors from Syria. France said it is recalling its ambassador to Syria for consultations. Other Western powers including Britain, the United States and Italy have called back their top envoys in the wake of new violence.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Turkey's PM Erdogan announced a new initiative with regional players to halt the violence in Syria, saying the veto of a UN resolution had given President Bashar al-Assad a "license to kill."
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2013 Feb 7, The US IRS said that the government took action in January against 389 people suspected of committing tax fraud through identity theft. This included 109 arrests and 189 indictments.
(SFC, 2/8/13, p.C2)
2013 Feb 7, In southern California Margie Carranza and her 71-year-old mother, Emma Hernandez, were delivering papers around 5 a.m. when LAPD officers guarding the Torrance home of a target named in an online Dorner manifesto blasted at least 100 rounds at their pickup. Hernandez was shot in the back and Carranza had minor injuries. In April the city of Los Angeles reached a $4.2 million settlement with a mother and daughter.
(AP, 4/23/13)
2013 Feb 7, In eastern Afghanistan a NATO helicopter crashed in Kapisa province, but no crew members were seriously injured.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, An Australian government report said doping was widespread among professional and amateur athletes and demanded investigators name offenders to protect clean athletes' reputations.
(Reuters, 2/8/13)
2013 Feb 7, UK authorities said beef lasagna products recalled from British supermarkets by frozen food company Findus had tested positive for more than 60% horsemeat.
(SFC, 2/8/13, p.A2)
2013 Feb 7, In Ottowa, Canada, police said Marc Leduc (56) has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the killing of two local sex workers. Pamela Kosmac, 39, was found murdered in 2008 near a bicycle path, while Leanne Lawson, 23, was found in a parking lot in a central part of the city. Leduc was already in custody facing 11 charges related to an alleged sexual assault of a 19-year-old Ottawa woman last November.
(AP, 2/8/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Colombia over 5,000 workers at the Cerrejon coal mine went on strike. Negotiations began on Feb 26.
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.38)
2013 Feb 7, Egypt's PM Hesham Kandil condemned religious edicts by hardline Muslim clerics calling for the killing of opposition leaders and said the government is considering legal action against them. Kandil faced uproar, derision and even lawsuits after he blamed health problems of babies in impoverished villages on nursing mothers who "out of ignorance" don't clean their breasts and talked of village women getting raped in the fields.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Egypt an Islamic summit urged Syrian opposition forces and members of Pres. Bashar Assad's regime, whose hands are not tainted by violence, to hold talks to try to resolve the nation's civil war.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, Ireland dissolved one of its "bad banks", the Irish Bank Resolution Corp (IBRC), in an emergency measure designed to pave the way for a new debt-repayment deal with the European Central Bank.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Mali French troops began to withdraw from Timbuktu after securing the fabled city as they ramped up their mission in Gao, searching for Islamic extremists who may be mixing among the local population.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, Pirates attacked the MV Esther C some 80 miles (130 km) off Nigeria's coast. On March 11 Carisbrooke Shipping Ltd. of the United Kingdom said 3 captured sailors have been freed.
(AP, 3/11/13)
2013 Feb 7, Syrian troops and rebels clashed again in the capital Damascus, a day after what activists described as the heaviest fighting in months in President Bashar Assad's seat of power.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Tunisia the Islamist Ennahda party, dominating the ruling coalition, rejected PM Hamadi Jebali’s decision to replace the government to try to appease critics, signaling that the political crisis brought on by the assassination of a prominent leftist politician is far from over.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, A Yemeni military official said an explosion at a military weapons depot in northern Yemen has killed 10 civilians and 5 soldiers.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Zambia a bus operated by the postal service, carrying passengers toward its capital Lusaka, smashed into a semi-truck and another car killing at least 53 people in one of the worst traffic crashes in the nation in recent history.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2014 Feb 7, Pres. Obama signed into law an agriculture spending bill that will spread benefits to farmers while trimming the food stamp program.
(SFC, 2/8/14, p.A5)
2014 Feb 7, In Argentina a truck driving on the wrong side of a highway crashed head on with passenger bus killing at least 18 people on National Hwy 7 in Mendoza province.
(SSFC, 2/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb 7, Protesters in Bosnia set fire to government buildings and fought with police as anger over unemployment and political inertia fuelled a 3rd day of the worst civil unrest in the country since its 1992-95 war.
(Reuters, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Cambodia a boy (8) died of H5N1 bird flu, the country’s first case this year. His sister (2) also died the same day.
(AP, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Central African Republic thousands of Muslims fled for their lives from Bangui, with Christian crowds cheering as truckloads of Muslim families made their way out of town. One man who fell off a truck was subsequently killed and his body mutilated, highlighting the savagery faced by those Muslims who stayed behind. A convoy of some 500 cars, trucks and motorcycles was guarded by armed soldiers from Chad. The UN's refugee agency said nearly 9,000 people, mainly Muslims, have fled to Cameroon in just over a week to escape communal bloodshed in the CAR.
(AP, 2/7/14)(AFP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In China villagers of Baha in Yunnan province smashed the offices and equipment of a local metalwork factory and clashed with police after the boss refused to meet with them over smoke and pollution concerns. Xinhua News later said police were arresting people involved and had identified 16 suspects.
(SFC, 2/13/14, p.A6)
2014 Feb 7, In Egypt six policemen were wounded in double bombing attack in Cairo, hours before clashes between police and Islamist protesters in several cities killed 3 people. Ajnad Misr, Arabic for Egypt's Soldiers, claimed responsibility for the bomb attack. Late day airstrikes targeted hideouts of "terrorist, extremely dangerous takfiri" militants in the eastern border town of Sheikh Zuweyid. 16 militants were reported killed.
(AFP, 2/7/14)(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 7, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed outrage over a leaked phone conversation in which Victoria Nuland, a top US diplomat, used the f-word regarding the European Union's handling of the crisis in Ukraine. An angry US State Department pointed the finger at Russia for allegedly bugging the diplomats' phones.
(AFP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, India acceded to Italy's request and said it won't invoke an anti-piracy law carrying the death penalty when it tries two Italian marines accused of killing two Indian fishermen in 2012.
(AP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Aid agencies working in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem expressed alarm at a spike in Israeli demolitions of Palestinian property coinciding with renewed US-backed peace negotiations.
(Reuters, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Mali’s Ministry of Defense said around 30 ethnic Tuaregs have been killed in the northern Gao region in local fighting with ethnic Peuls.
(Reuters, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Pakistan's fledgling peace talks with the Taliban suffered a fresh blow as a negotiator for the militants said he would take no further part until the agenda included the imposition of Islamic sharia law.
(AFP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In the northern Philippines a bus veered off a mountain road and fell into a ravine, killing at least 14 people.
(AP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Puerto Rico Pedro Rodriguez Colondres was indicted on accusations that he ran a fraud scheme obtaining at least half a million dollars in veteran's benefits under a false name from 1984 to 2011.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 7, Russia opened the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Police arrested four gay rights activists protesting in St. Petersburg.
(AP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In South Africa striking miners clashed with police after using rocks and burning tires to block a road leading to Anglo American Platinum's Union mine near Northam town. One protester was killed.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 7, Spain’s Cabinet approved a bill amending previous legislation that granted nationality by naturalization to Sephardic Jews who chose to apply for it. The reform will allow dual nationality, enabling people who can prove Sephardic ancestry to also retain their previous citizenships.
(AP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Famished and traumatized Syrians were able to leave besieged parts of Homs for the first time in more than a year as part of a potentially ground breaking agreement between the Syrian government and the United Nations.
(Time.com, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman said one of its journalists, Mahir Zeynalov (27) from Azerbaijan, has been ordered to leave the country for criticizing PM Tayyip Erdogan on Twitter.
(Reuters, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In central and southern Uruguay flooding caused by torrential rains forced the evacuation of thousands of people from their homes.
(AFP, 2/13/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Yemen Fresh clashes between Shiite rebels and tribesmen backed by Sunni Islamists erupted near Sanaa.
(AFP, 2/7/14)
2015 Feb 7, In Georgia, USA, Cedric Prather (33) shot and killed 4 people, including his ex-wife and several children, and wounded two others at a home in Douglasville before fatally shooting himself.
(SSFC, 2/8/15, p.A9)(SFC, 2/9/15, p.A6)
2015 Feb 7, Workers at refineries in Indiana and Ohio went on strike against two BP plants in an extension of strikes that began Feb 1.
(SSFC, 2/8/15, p.A9)
2015 Feb 7, Residents in Montana began finding dead horses. Somebody had shot up to two dozen horses and dumped their bodies in a hay field about a mile west of Lodge Grass on the Crow Indian Reservation.
(http://tinyurl.com/ors58py)(SFC, 2/17/15, p.A5)
2015 Feb 7, An alleged audiotape aired on a Brotherhood-allied TV station in which Egypt’s Pres. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and a top aide purportedly banter about how rich Persian Gulf Arabs are and add up the billions they intend to seek. Financial help, estimated at some $32 billion, has helped keep Egypt afloat after years of instability. On Feb 9 el-Sissi called leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE, praising their wisdom and saying relations won’t be undermined by “nefarious attempts" to do so.
(http://tinyurl.com/lyprfja)(SFC, 2/11/15, p.A2)
2015 Feb 7, In Egypt 3 policemen were shot dead and two others injured when they came under fire while conducting a raid against a group of criminals near the southern city of Minya.
(AP, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, Germany's Angela Merkel warned that sending arms to help Ukraine fight pro-Russian separatists would not solve the crisis there, drawing a sharp rebuke from a leading US senator who accused Berlin of turning its back on an ally in distress.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, In Haiti at least 6,000 protesters marched through the capital to demand lower gas prices and the ouster of President Michel Martelly.
(AP, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, Air pollution in Delhi, India, was reported to be the worst in the world with levels of smaller particulates routinely 15 times above levels deemed safe by the World Health Organization (WHO).
(Econ, 2/7/15, p.38)
2015 Feb 7, In Iraq at least 40 people were killed in three bombings around Baghdad. Baghdad's decade-old nightly curfew was set to end at midnight.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)(AP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, Kenji Ekuan (85), Japanese industrial designer, died in Tokyo. His works ranged from a bullet train to the red-capped Kikkoman soy sauce dispenser as familiar as the classic Coca-Cola bottle. A former monk, Ekuan crafted a tabletop bottle for Kikkoman Corp. in 1961, winning international popularity both for the handy, flask-shaped dispenser.
(AP, 2/9/15)
2015 Feb 7, Jordan carried out a third straight day of air strikes on Islamic State targets.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, In Kenya a masked gunman shot and killed a Kenyan lawmaker on a street in Nairobi. George Muchai, was killed alongside his two bodyguards and a driver after they stopped to buy a newspaper.
(AP, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, Libya's eastern oil export port Hariga shut down due to a strike of security guards, closing the country's last functioning export port apart from two offshore fields. Only Brega port was still open, but it is used to supply the 120,000 bpd-Zawiya refinery with crude.
(Reuters, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, A Mexican federal judge threw out a five-year, money-laundering sentence for Sandra Avila Beltran, ordering the immediate release of the "Queen of the Pacific" for her alleged role as a liaison between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. The judge ruled that Avila already had been tried for the same crime in Mexico and the United States.
(AP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, NATO and Russia failed to narrow their differences over the Ukraine crisis in talks but agreed they would keep talking to each other.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, US-led forces launched 15 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and 11 in Syria over the last 24 hours. Nine targets in Syria centered around the border city of Kobani.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, Nigeria’s election body chairman Attahiru Jega announced that the presidential and parliamentary polls would be postponed from February 14 to March 28, while gubernatorial and state assembly elections would be held on April 11.
(AFP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, In Puntland at least 2 people were killed when Somali militants al Shabaab attacked the house of a senior police official in the semi-autonomous region.
(Reuters, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, Slovaks voted in a nationwide a referendum that would bar gay marriages and adoptions, and allow parents to decide whether their children attend sex education classes. The votes won't count unless at least half of the eligible voters turn out. Voters overwhelmingly voted "yes" — 95, 92 and 90 percent, respectively — to the three questions. But turnout reached only 21.4 percent, far less than the 50 percent needed.
(AP, 2/7/15)(AP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, South African police discovered the frozen corpses of four newborn babies in two freezers at a house in the southern city of Mthatha.
(AFP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, Tunisian authorities said they have arrested 32 extremists over the last several days and thwarted an ambitious plot to attack civilian and military sites around the country, including the Interior Ministry. Some 3,000 Tunisians were estimated to have left for jihad, mainly with the Islamic State group, in Syria and Iraq.
(AP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko brandished in front of world leaders several passports taken from Russian soldiers in what he said was proof of Moscow's "presence" in his country.
(AFP, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, The United Arab Emirates said it has ordered a squadron of F-16 fighters to Jordan, which would participate in airstrikes on the Islamic State group after the UAE earlier suspended its involvement.
(AP, 2/7/15)
2016 Feb 7, The United States and its allies conducted ten strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
(Reuters, 2/8/16)
2016 Feb 7, The SF Bay Area hosted the 50th edition of the Super Bowl. The Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers 24-10.
(AFP, 2/7/16)(http://tinyurl.com/j86x5ye)
2016 Feb 7, Afghan officials said a policeman was killed in a roadside bomb explosion in Puli Alim, the capital of Logar province. Eight others were wounded in the attack including head provincial judge, Haqiq Rahman, and the head of the city's appeals court, Abdul Rahman, as well as two other judges and four civilians.
(AP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Algeria's parliament adopted a package of constitutional reforms that authorities say will strengthen democracy, but opponents doubt it will bring real change. The new constitution limited presidents to two five-year terms.
(AFP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, In Israel a Sudanese migrant stabbed and wounded a soldier in an apparent act of solidarity with Palestinians and was shot dead.
(Reuters, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, In Jamaica gunfire left 3 people dead as Andrew Hollness, leader of the oppositon Jamaica Labour Party, spoke to supporters in Montego Bay.
(Econ, 2/20/16, p.30)
2016 Feb 7, In Libya unidentified aircraft attacked the city of Derna early today, killing at least four people including a woman and her child.
(Reuters, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Maldives police arrested a judge and a former prosecutor general for issuing an arrest warrant for the country's president without the police requesting one.
(AP, 2/8/16)
2016 Feb 7, North Korea launched a long-range rocket carrying what it called a satellite, but its neighbors and the United States denounced the launch as a missile test, conducted in defiance of UN sanctions and just weeks after a nuclear bomb test.
(Reuters, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Spanish police said they have arrested six suspected members of a jihadi cell linked to Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra militants during raids in the eastern provinces of Valencia and Alicante and in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta.
(AP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil leaders have asked the top UN human rights official to help determine the fate of more than 4,000 civilians reported missing in the country's long civil war amid the new government's assertion that most of them are probably dead.
(AP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Aid trucks and ambulances entered Syria from Turkey to deliver food and supplies to tens of thousands of people fleeing an escalating government assault on Aleppo, as air strikes targeted villages on the road north to the Turkish border. 45 pro-regime fighters killed by gunfire and another 31 killed when landmines were detonated during clashes near Damascus.
(Reuters, 2/7/16)(AP, 2/13/16)
2016 Feb 7, A top official in the United Arab Emirates said that his country is prepared to send ground troops to Syria to fight Islamic State militants as part of an international coalition.
(AP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, In southern Yemen al-Qaida militants battled each other in the southern city of Zinjibar controlled by the group, in what appeared to be an internal power struggle that erupted after a senior militant was killed in a US drone strike. At least 7 militants were left dead and another nine wounded.
(AP, 2/8/16)
2017 Feb 7, VP Thomas Pence cast his vote to confirm charter school advocate Betsy DeVos as US education secretary breaking a 50-50 Senate tie.
(SFC, 2/8/17, p.A4)
2017 Feb 7, US federal prosecutors said Jermine Prosper (39), native of Guyana, was sentenced last week to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to smuggling dozens of guns. He had legally purchased about 50 guns in the Atlanta and smuggled them in shipping barrels to Guyana, where they were sold on the streets.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, The US Army said that it will allow the $3.8 billion Dakota Access oil pipeline to cross under a Mississippi River reservoir in North Dakota.
(SFC, 2/8/17, p.A6)
2017 Feb 7, In northern California the Dept. of Water Resources discovered a large amount of debris coming out of the concrete-lined spillway of the Oroville Dam. Release of water was stopped and engineers found a massive crater in the spillway.
(SSFC, 2/19/17, p.A19)
2017 Feb 7, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) was rebuked by the Senate for a reading a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King that dated to Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions’ failed judicial nomination. The Senate was debating Sessions’ nomination for attorney general.
(SFC, 2/8/17, p.A5)
2017 Feb 7, Richard Hatch (b.1945), former star of the TV series “Battleship Galactica" (1978-1979), died in Los Angeles.
(SFC, 2/9/17, p.D3)
2017 Feb 7, In Afghanistan 22 people were killed in a bomb blast outside the Supreme Court in the center of Kabul, in what appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks on the judiciary. The Islamic State soon claimed responsibility.
(Reuters, 2/7/17)(Reuters, 2/8/17)
2017 Feb 7, Brazilian federal troops began to reestablish control over the state of Espirito Santo, where scores of people are reported to have been killed since the police went on strike. Police stopped patrolling on Feb 4 and criminals quickly ran amok.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Brexit Minister David Jones told the House of Commons that Parliament would get to approve the deal "before it is concluded" and before the European Parliament votes on it.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Colombia opens peace talks with its last active rebel group, the ELN, seeking to replicate its historic accord with the FARC guerrillas and deliver "complete peace" after 53 years of war.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, The European Union appointed 19 international judges to a special court that will prosecute ethnic Albanian rebels for crimes during and immediately after Kosovo's war for independence (1998-2000). The Kosovo Specialist Chambers judges come from 12 EU countries and the United States and Canada.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was ordered to stand trial in an inquiry into alleged campaign finance fraud during his failed 2012 re-election bid.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Gangs of French youths torched cars and bins in a showdown with police in a north Paris suburb overnight in a grim reminder of the simmering tension that sparked weeks of more serious rioting in the area a decade ago. It was the third night of tension since four police officers were suspended pending an inquiry into accusations they had used excessive force on Feb 2 while arresting a 22-year-old man there, including shoving a baton into his anus.
(Reuters, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Jovenel Moise (48) was sworn as Haiti's 58th president, ending a protracted electoral crisis that had created a vacuum of power in the impoverished, disaster-prone Caribbean nation.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Ivory Coast special forces troops fired in the air in towns in the north and south of the country, weeks after soldiers and security forces mutinied over pay in the west African nation. They appeared to be angling for a deal with the government along the lines of one struck with mutinous soldiers in January that offered some of them large one-off lump sum payments.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, US superstar Madonna adopted twin girls in Malawi, raising to four the total number of children she has adopted from the southern African nation.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Nigerian troops saved the life of a young woman strapped with explosives and killed another suicide bomber, apparently primed by Boko Haram Islamic extremists to attack the northeastern city of Maiduguri.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Palestinian Pres. Mahmud Abbas called a new Israeli law legalizing dozens of Jewish outposts built on private Palestinian land an "attack against our people".
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Peru's attorney general announced he would seek the arrest of former President Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) on charges of laundering of assets and influence trafficking.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte berated 228 policemen accused of a variety of offenses, threatening on national television that he would send them to a southern island to fight militants dreaded for beheading captives.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Romania's President Klaus Iohannis told lawmakers the country is in a "fully-fledged" political crisis, after hundreds of thousands demonstrated against a government measure that would weaken the country's anti-corruption drive.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, In Syria air strikes on Al-Qaeda's former affiliate killed 26 people including 16 civilians in Idlib city. The headquarters of Fateh al-Sham Front and the surrounding neighborhood were battered by at least 10 strikes at dawn.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Amnesty International accused Syria's government of hanging up to 13,000 people at a notorious prison over five years in a "policy of extermination", between 2011 and 2015. The damning report was titled "Human Slaughterhouse: Mass hanging and extermination at Saydnaya prison".
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Tanzania’s deputy minister of health said he has ordered the arrest of three men accused of promoting homosexuality.
(SFC, 2/8/17, p.A2)
2017 Feb 7, Thailand’s PM Prayuth Chan-ocha said that Somdej Phra Maha Muniwong (89) has been appointed by King Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun as the 20th supreme patriarch of the Buddhist order. His predecessor died in 2013 at age 100.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Thailand's cabinet approved measures worth $1 billion to help farmers in its flood-hit south.
(Reuters, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, A Thai court sentenced Australian Antonio Bagnato (28) to death for the murder of a countryman who was an alleged confederate in a drug smuggling gang. He was found guilty of killing former Hells Angels member Wayne Schneider in November 2015 after he and accomplices beat and kidnapped the victim from his luxury villa in the Pattaya resort area.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2018 Feb 7, The US Justice Department announced indictments against 36 people accused of being active in the Infraud Organization — founded in 2010 and operated under the slogan "In Fraud We Trust" — which was an anonymous online forum that the department described as a "one-stop shop for cybercriminals." The US indictment described Russian national Sergey Medvedev (31) as the group's co-founder.
(AP, 2/9/18)
2018 Feb 7, Rob Porter, Pres. Donald Trump's staff secretary, resigned following allegations of domestic abuse by two of his ex-wives.
(SFC, 2/8/18, p.A6)
2018 Feb 7, US House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi mounted a one-woman filibuster on the House floor demanding that Republicans allow an open debate on legislation to protect young immigrants and potentially derailing GOP efforts to pass a bipartisan deal on spending. She held the floor for more than eight hours.
(SFC, 2/8/18, p.A1)
2018 Feb 7, California officials sent a formal letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management demanding that the Pacific coast be removed from a program to vastly increase offshore oil drilling in the United States.
(AP, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, Los Angeles biotech entrepreneur Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong (65) agreed to buy the L.A. Times from Chicago-based Tronc Inc. for $500 million.
(SFC, 2/8/18, p.A7)
2018 Feb 7, Bermuda's UK-appointed governor, John Rankin, signed into law legislation replacing same-sex marriage with domestic partnerships passed in December by the Senate and House of Assembly. The decision reversed a 2017 court ruling legalizing gay marriage.
(AP, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, London-based Aon Securities said the World Bank has launched a $1.4 billion catastrophe bond covering Latin American earthquakes, the largest earthquake catastrophe bond on record. The multi-tranche bond would provide earthquake relief for Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Brazil police and military forces said they have arrested 23 people in a series of raids over the last two days in violence-plagued parts of Rio de Janeiro two days before the city's famed Carnival celebrations.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Brazil's Health Ministry confirmed more than 350 cases of yellow fever as infections pick up steam in the state at the center of the last outbreak.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, British supermarket chain Tesco faced legal claims that it is paying women less than men for work of equal value, in a case that lawyers estimate could ultimately cost it as much as 4 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) in compensation payments.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Jon Venables, one of Britain's most notorious killers, admitted to having more than a thousand indecent images of children. In 1993 he murdered two-year-old James Bulger when he was only 10 himself.
(AFP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, A court in Cambodia allowed the release on bail of seven Westerners who were arrested last month for allegedly posting photos on social media of themselves engaged in sexually suggestive dancing. Three other people remained in detention.
(AP, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, Colombia's ELN rebel group said it would hold a three-day national blockade beginning over the weekend to protest the government's suspension of peace negotiations, and urged Colombians to avoid travel.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Egyptian officials opened the border with the Gaza Strip for the first time this year. Officials said the Rafah crossing point would operate for three days on a humanitarian basis.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, A feasibility study by Estonia and Finland said the world's longest undersea rail tunnel (103 kms) between the two countries could cost up to 20 billion euros ($24.7 billion) and be opened for traffic by 2040.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, European Union lawmakers rejected a proposal for pan-EU lists of candidates for seats in the European Parliament, but French President Emmanuel Macron said he would continue to press for such transnational lists.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, The European Parliament voted to dismiss one of its vice presidents, Ryszard Czarnecki of Poland, after he compared a rival Polish parliament member to a Nazi collaborator.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, France said the Syrian government likely used chlorine gas in its latest attacks on rebel-held areas.
(SFC, 2/8/18, p.A2)
2018 Feb 7, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives made major concessions to the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) to agree a coalition deal that should give Europe's powerhouse a new government after four months of uncertainty. Merkel handed her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners control of the finance ministry, giving them license to spend a record budget surplus, and embracing their demands for European reform.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Israel thousands of African asylum seekers protested outside the Rwandan Embassy, calling on the African country not to cooperate with an Israeli plan to deport them.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Kenyan authorities overnight deported lawyer Miguna Miguna, charged with treason for attending the symbolic presidential inauguration of opposition leader Raila Odinga, prompting a rare rebuke from the Chief Justice who accused the government of defying court orders.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, A Kenyan court convicted a policeman of murdering a suspected thief in 2013 in a rare victory for the independent police watchdog that brought the case. The judge ruled that policeman Titus Musila should have arrested Kenneth Mwangi, whom he believed had stolen a mobile phone, instead of shooting him three times in the head.
(Reuters, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, Lebanon's Higher Defence Council gave orders to prevent Israel from building a border wall on Lebanese land, amid rising tensions over land and maritime boundaries.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Libya a military source said that Libyan commander Mahmoud al-Werfalli, sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the alleged summary execution of dozens of people, has handed himself in to the military police in eastern Libya.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Libya an embassy official said about 20 people, including eight Pakistanis, feared to have drowned on a boat that sank off Libya on Feb. 2 were brought back to shore by smugglers and were being held at an unknown location.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Embattled Maldives Pres. Abdulla Yameen sent envoys to friendly nations such as China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to brief them on a political crisis in the Indian Ocean nation that spurred the imposition of a state of emergency.
(Reuters, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, Mexican authorities arrested Jose Maria Guizar Valencia, the alleged leader of the zetas drug cartel. Guizar Valencia, a dual US-Mexican citizen, was arrested in Mexico City.
(SFC, 2/10/18, p.A4)
2018 Feb 7, A Pakistani court sentenced a man to death and convicted 30 others over the lynching of a 23-year-old university student who was falsely accused of blasphemy. Mohammad Mashal Khan was killed by a mob on his university campus in April 2016 over rumors, which later proved to be unfounded.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Police in Pakistan said they have arrested two teenagers suspected in the murder of a four-year-old girl last month.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In South Africa two workers were killed after a section of Sibanye-Stillwater's Kloof gold mine collapsed.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In South Korea a 229-member strong, all-female cheering section arrived from North Korea for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said new airstrikes launched by Russian and Syrian government forces on a besieged rebel-held region east of Damascus killed 23 civilians including five children.
(AP, 2/7/18)(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Syria about 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm were either killed or injured near Deir al-Zor as US-led coalition forces attacked forces aligned with Moscow's ally. Sources later said about 100 Russian military contractors were killed in the Deir al-Zor battle. Russia later acknowledged that at least five of its citizens may have been killed. The Kremlin-linked private military organization that recruited the fighters returned bodies more than seven weeks after the battle and with official documents bearing details that people who knew them say were incorrect.
(Reuters, 2/16/18)(SFC, 2/16/18, p.A2)(Reuters, 2/5/19)
2018 Feb 7, A Turkish court sentenced 64 military academy officers and trainees to life in prison for involvement in a failed military coup in 2016. Another 100 defendants were acquitted.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, A senior Turkish official said that the country has fulfilled all 72 requirements set by the EU to secure visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to the 28-nation bloc.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, The United Nations top human rights official called on the Maldives government to immediately lift the state of emergency imposed two days ago, calling it to "an all-out assault on democracy".
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2019 Feb 7, The United States sharply rebuked Germany for deporting Adem Yilmaz, a wanted Islamic militant, to Turkey instead of extraditing him to New York to stand trial on terror-related charges. He has been charged by a US federal grand jury with conspiring to carry out a March 3, 2008, suicide bombing in Afghanistan, which left two US soldiers dead and 11 others injured.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, The US Supreme Court voted 5-4 to stop Louisiana from requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
(SFC, 2/8/19, p.A4)
2019 Feb 7, Former Michigan US Rep. John Dingell (b.1926), died at his home in Dearborn. Dingell had set a record for serving 59 years in the US House before retiring in 2014.
(SFC, 2/8/19, p.A7)
2019 Feb 7, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said he was the target of extortion and blackmail by American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer. The tabloid had published a story of his extramarital affair last month.
(SFC, 2/8/19, p.A6)
2019 Feb 7, The government of Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic set up panels to re-examine the number of victims in Srebrenica and Sarajevo during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, a move Western countries viewed as a push to revise history.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Brazil torrential downpours and strong winds killed at least five people and left a trail of destruction in Rio de Janeiro.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, British writer Rosamunde Pilcher (94) died overnight in Scotland. She wrote more than 12 novels including the family saga "The Shell Seekers" (1987), which sold millions of copies around the world.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Veteran British actor Albert Finney (b.1936) died in London after a short illness. His films included "Two for the Road" (1967), "Wolfen" (1981), "Shoot the Moon" (1982) and "Erin Brockovich" (2000). His four best actor Academy Award nominations were for "Tom Jones" (1963), as Poirot in "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974), "The Dresser" (1983) and "Under the Volcano" (1984). Finney also appeared and sang in "Scrooge" (1970) and "Annie" (1982), in which he played tycoon Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, Chadian President Idriss Deby said a column of rebels which had sought to cross into the country from Libya had been "destroyed" in a series of strikes carried out by French warplanes. The French military has said Mirage 2000 jets struck an armed convoy on three days this week, destroying about 20 of roughly 50 pickup trucks.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Police in Chile arrested retired Gen. Juan Emilio Cheyre, a former army chief, on charges of torturing 24 people in 1973, shortly after the coup that brought dictator Augusto Pinochet to power.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Congo's new President Felix Tshisekedi landed in Brazzaville, the capital of neighboring Republic of the Congo, to start his first international trip since being elected president in late January.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Costa Rica a second woman accused former president and Nobel Peace laureate Oscar Arias (78) of sexual assault in 2015. The former Miss Costa Rica said he "grabbed" her head and pulled her close to him before "he touched my breasts over my clothes and then gave me a kiss against my will".
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, A Danish court sentenced a 36-year-old woman to four years in jail for having drained 500 milliliters (more than a pint) of blood from her young son as often as once a week over a five-year period. A psychiatric report said she suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental condition where caregivers make a child ill in order to attract attention to themselves.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Egypt executed three Muslim Brotherhood members sentenced to death following torture and beatings to extract confessions. The three were convicted last year for the 2014 killing of a judge's son in the Nile Delta town of Mansoura.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, France said its defense cooperation with Cameroon was continuing a day after the United States said it was halting some military assistance to the West African country over allegations of human rights violations by its security forces.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, France's foreign ministry recalled its ambassador to Rome for consultations over a series of comments from Italy's deputy prime ministers, Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini. Salvini and De Maio have angered Macron in particular by publicly supporting the "yellow vest" protesters who have taken to the streets to denounce high living costs and a perceived indifference by the government to rural and small-town France.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, German authorities ruled that Facebook should not be allowed to use customer data from other apps and websites to help target advertisements shown on their Facebook pages without their explicit consent, saying it was exploiting its dominant position in social media. Facebook said it rejected the decision, and would appeal within the one-month frame before it becomes final.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Reporters Without Borders said that Iranian authorities arrested, jailed and sometimes executed 1.7 million people around the capital Tehran alone in the first 30 years after the 1979 Islamic revolution. At least 860 journalists were arrested, imprisoned or executed over the same period.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Israel's prestigious $1 million Dan David Prize was awarded to Canadian author Michael Ignatieff and Reporters Without Borders for their work in promoting democracy.
(SFC, 2/8/19, p.A2)
2019 Feb 7, The body of Israeli teenager Ori Ansbacher (19) was found in the woods near Jerusalem with stabbing wounds. Police soon arrested Arafat Erfaiyeh (29), a Palestinian suspect in the killing.
(AP, 2/9/19)(SSFC, 2/10/19, p.A6)(AP, 2/11/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Jordan a former customs chief, an ex-minister and a top businessman were among 29 suspects charged with corruption in a case involving fake cigarettes. Media reports have said the "tobacco case" had cost Jordan's treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Kosovo hundreds of protesters called on authorities to jail a police officer accused of sexually abusing a girl (16).
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Lebanon's new government approved a policy statement committing to reforms that are seen as critical to putting the heavily indebted state's finances on a sustainable path.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Lebanon's parliament speaker said an Israeli move to license energy exploration near a disputed maritime boundary threatened to drain Lebanese oil wealth before its own drilling had started.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Myanmar police arrested 36 people outside the headquarters of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party in the Kayah state capital of Loikaw after police broke up the latest protest against a statue of Aung San. Another 10 people were arrested the following day.
(Reuters, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, In the Netherlands thousands of students skipped classes to march for action on climate change, following the example of young demonstrators in Belgium and other countries for the first time.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Portugal's Health Minister Marta Temido announced that the government has decided to order a so-called civil requisition, whereby workers in essential services are required by law to report for duty in "exceptionally serious" circumstances.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, The council of Scotland's capital Edinburgh said it will become the first British city to introduce a tourist tax to try to better manage the impact of swelling visitor numbers and booming hotel occupancy. The idea needs a final sign-off by Scotland's devolved parliament.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Sierra Leone's Pres. Julius Maada Bio declared a national emergency over rape and sexual violence, saying perpetrators are getting younger and their acts more violent.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Somalia US targeted airstrikes against suspected extremists killed 4 more fighters in the vicinity of Bariire, Lower Shabelle region.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Sudan hundreds of protesters rallied in Khartoum in support of fellow demonstrators detained in the weeks of rallies against President Omar al-Bashir's iron-fisted rule.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Syria a Kurdish-led force arrested 63 suspected militants in the city of Raqa during an operation against jihadist sleeper cells.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Ugandan police arrested a team of BBC journalists overnight for illegal possession of prescription drugs. The country's government spokesman said the reporters had been helping to expose corruption, and demanded their immediate release.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Uruguay European and Latin American leaders gathered in Montevideo to discuss a plan to solve the deepening crisis in Venezuela, while urging the global community to back away from direct intervention.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Uzbekistan businessman Halemubieke Xiaheman (41) an ethnic Kazakh citizen of China's Xinjiang province, said in a video apparently recorded inside Tashkent airport building that he had been harassed by Chinese security officials to a point where his Russian and Kazakh clients were scared to work with him.
(Reuters, 2/8/19)
2020 Feb 7, Pres. Donald Trump ousted Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the decorated soldier and national security aide who played a central role in the Democrats' impeachment case. Next came word that Gordon Sondland, Trump's ambassador to the European Union, also was out.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Former Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, making him the first high-level former Trump administration official to back a Democratic hopeful in the 2020 election.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, More than 300,000 homes and businesses were without power early today as a weather system blamed for five deaths in the South moved into the northeastern United States. Authorities confirmed five storm-related fatalities, in Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, A judge in Boston ordered Douglas Hodge (62) of Laguna Beach to spend nine months in federal prison for paying bribes to get four of his children into the Univ. of Southern California and Georgetown as fake athletic recruits. Hodge onece served as the head of Pimco, a bond management company.
(SFC, 2/8/20, p.A6)
2020 Feb 7, Vance Pearson, a former senior official of the United Auto Workers based in St. Louis, pleaded guilty to a corruption scheme that used union cash for vacation villas, golf, cigars and booze.
(SFC, 2/10/20, p.A5)
2020 Feb 7, In New Hampshire a Democratic presidential debate was held ahead or the upcoming primary in the state. Joe Biden had a strong moment during the debate when he called on the audience to “stand and give Col. Vindman a show of how much we supported him," adding that Trump “should be pinning a medal on Vindman and not on Rush Limbaugh".
(AP, 2/8/20)(Yahoo News, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, It was reported that the US Air Force had 84 suicides among active-duty members last year, up from 60 the year before.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the Esperanza base on the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula has recorded a temperature of 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.94 degrees Fahrenheit), the highest on record.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Heavy rains lashed parts of the wildfire and drought-stricken Australian east coast, bringing some flooding in Sydney and relief to firefighters still dealing with dozens of blazes in New South Wales. There were still 42 fires burning in the state, with 17 of those not contained.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Government data showed that aggressive deforestation is starting earlier this year in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, with destruction doubling in January compared with a year ago.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, It was reported that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has signed into law quarantine rules for Brazilians who will be brought back from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Shamima Begum (20), a UK woman who as a teenager ran away to join the Islamic State group in 2015, lost a legal challenge Friday aimed at restoring her citizenship, which was revoked on national security grounds.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, China confirmed 31,161 cases and 636 deaths on the mainland. Dr. Li Wenliang (34) died overnight due to the coronavirus at Wuhan Central Hospital. Police in December had reprimanded eight doctors including ophthalmologist Li for warning friends on social media about the emerging threat.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Independent scientists questioned research that suggested that the outbreak of coronavirus disease spreading from China might have passed from bats to humans through the illegal traffic of pangolins. South China Agricultural University had led the research.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Egypt freed pro-democracy activist Ramy Sayed (31). He had spent over four years in prison and rose to local prominence as one of the faces of the country's 2011 uprising.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Egyptian police arrested Patrick George Zaki (27), an activist, researcher and vocal critic of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's government.
(AP, 2/9/20)
2020 Feb 7, French President Emmanuel Macron called for European nations to play a more direct role in halting a new nuclear arms race, saying they "cannot remain spectators" against a threat to the continent's collective security.
(AFP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, French air strikes killed 20 militants in the Sahel region where Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso meet. Earlier in the week commando operations killed about ten others in the border area.
(SSFC, 2/9/20, p.A3)
2020 Feb 7, Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for security forces to protect anti-government protesters in a sermon, after weeks of violence in Baghdad and southern Iraq, and amid seething tensions between demonstrators and followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, The director of Israeli crossings informed all exporters and all relevant parties that all Palestinian agriculture products would be banned from export to world markets through the Jordanian crossing starting Feb. 9.
(Reuters, 2/8/20)
2020 Feb 7, The head of Ivory Coast's cotton and cashew council said production of cashews fell 17% to 634,641 tons in 2019 after as much as 200,000 tons were smuggled out of the country.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, In southern Kazakhstan ethnic clashes between ethnic Kazakhs and Dungans, a minority group with Chinese roots, left eight people dead. The total number of casualties soon rose to 10. Dozens of people were detained as police established their roles in the incident.
(AP, 2/9/20)
2020 Feb 7, Norway, western Europe's largest oil and gas producer, announced it was increasing its ambition to cut carbon emissions and would put an implementation plan before parliament later this year.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, President Vladimir Putin ordered payments to be made to Russian World War II veterans in Russia and the Baltic States as well as to those who were held in Nazi concentration camps. The one-time payments of 50,000 rubles to 75,000 rubles ($790-$1,200) will also go to the widows or widowers of veterans in Russia as well as Russian citizens in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Airat Khairullin, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament, was killed in a helicopter crash in Tatarstan, about 850 km (500 miles) east of Moscow. Two survivors suffered serious injuries.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, In South Africa Tazne van Wyk (7) went missing. Her body was found two weeks later after her suspected murderer led police to the storm drain where he said he had disposed of it. The suspect, a violent multiple offender had been released on parole. He was in prison for the kidnapping and murder of another child.
(BBC, 3/22/20)
2020 Feb 7, Sudan reached a settlement with families of the victims of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, as part of its campaign to persuade the US to remove its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. The settlement for about $30 million would be split between the families of the 17 sailors killed.
(Bloomberg, 2/13/20)
2020 Feb 7, Tunisia fired Moncef Baati, its ambassador to the UN, accusing him of failing to consult the foreign ministry on key issues that diplomatic sources said included Washington's controversial Middle East peace plan.
(AFP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Several Turkish armored vehicles and tanks entered rebel-controlled northwestern Syria, the latest reinforcements sent in by Ankara amid a Syrian government offensive that this week brought the two countries' troops into a rare direct confrontation.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, The UN said people are fleeing a surge of attacks in northern Mozambique where witnesses have described beheadings, mass kidnappings and villages burned to the ground.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, A UN poverty expert said Spain is depriving its poor of basic rights, even as its businesses recover from the economic crisis.
(AP, 2/7/20)
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For Asia History: https://www.asiaobserver.org/category/news/on-this-day-in-asian-history
457 Feb 7, A Thracian officer by the name of Leo was proclaimed as emperor of the East by the army general, Aspar, on the death of the Emperor Marcian.
(HN, 2/7/99)
590 Feb 7, Pelagius II, Gothic Pope (579-90), died from plague.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1249 Feb 7, The Christburg Peace Treaty forced the Prussians to recognize the rule of the Teutonic Knights. Within about 50 years the Teutonic Knights and Knights of the Cross had overcome most of Prussia and established German as the dominant culture and language. The German orders then turned to Lithuania.
(H of L, 1931, p.25)(LHC, 2/7/03)
1301 Feb 7, Edward of Caernarion (later Edward II) became the 1st prince of Wales.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1478 Feb 7, Sir Thomas Moore (d.1535), English humanist, statesman and writer, was born in London. He was best friend of Erasmus, and called by Erasmus: "a man for all seasons." He studied law and rose to the post of lord chancellor after the fall of Cardinal Wolsey. More would not accept Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon nor his subsequent marriage to Anne Boleyn. The king had charges of treason filed and More was beheaded on July 6, 1535. He was canonized in 1935. The 1966 film “A man for All Seasons" was based on his life. He is famous for "Utopia."
(V.D.-H.K.p.160)(CU, 6/87)(WUD, 1994, p.931)(HN, 2/7/99)
1497 Feb 7, Followers of the priest Girolamo Savonarola collected and publicly burned thousands of objects in Florence, Italy, on the Shrove Tuesday festival. Tom Wolfe's 1997 novel, “The Bonfire of the Vanities," makes reference to the original event, but is not a retelling of the story.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonfire_of_the_Vanities)
1522 Feb 7, Treaty of Brussels: Habsburgers split into Spanish and Austrian Branches.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1569 Feb 7, King Philip II ordered the inquisition in South America.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1609 Feb 7, Ferdinand I, cardinal, ruler of Tuscany, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1612 Feb 7, Thomas Killigrew, English humorist, playwright, leader (King's Men), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1639 Feb 7, Academie Francaise began its Dictionary of French Language.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1668 Feb 7, English King William III danced in the premiere of "Ballet of Peace."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1668 Feb 7, The Netherlands, England and Sweden concluded an alliance directed against Louis XIV of France.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1693 Feb 7, Anna Ivanova Romanova, empress of Russia (1730-40) [NS], was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1710 Feb 7, William Boyce, English organist, composer of Cathedral music, was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1739 Feb 7, Joseph Pouteau, composer, was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1740 Feb 7, Adam-Philippe Custine, French earl, general, MP, was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1743 Feb 7, Lodovico Giustini (57), composer, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1749 Feb 7, Andre Cardinal Destouches (76), composer, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1752 Feb 7, Publication, sale and distribution of the 1st 2 volumes of the Encyclopedie were summarily forbidden by order of King Louis XV. Chretien de Malesherbes, the French director of publications, managed to broker a compromise that included a layer of censorship and a 3rd volume was published by the end of 1753.
(ON, 4/05, p.9)
1779 Feb 7, William Boyce (67), composer, died. [see Feb 16]
(MC, 2/7/02)
1799 Feb 7, China’s Emperor Qianlong (b.1711) died. He was the sixth emperor of the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty, and the fourth Qing emperor to rule over China (1735-1796).
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qianlong_Emperor)
1783 Feb 7, The Siege of Gibraltar, pursued by the Spanish and the French since July 24, 1779, was finally lifted. [see Sep 13, 1782]
(HN, 2/7/99)(ON, 7/01, p.10)
1784 Feb 7, In Iceland the Lakagicar (Laki) volcano ceased its eruptions. Smoke from the 8 months of eruptions caused one of the longest and coldest winters in Europe. [see Jun 8, 1783]
(ON, 2/04, p.10)
1792 Feb 7, Cimarosa's opera "Il Matrimonio Segreto," premiered in Vienna.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1795 Feb 7, The 11th Amendment to US Constitution was ratified.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1801 Feb 7, John Rylands, merchant, philanthropist, was born in England.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1804 Feb 7, John Deere, farm equipment manufacturer, was born.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1812 Feb 7, Charles Dickens, English novelist, was born in Portsmouth, England. His stories reflected life in Victorian England. In his novel "Dombey & Son," Dickens confronted the subject of money, and its use as a measure of success. His work also included "Master Humphrey’s Clock," published in installments like most of his novels. The closing line of A Christmas Carol: "And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God Bless Us, Every One!" Some of his more famous novels include "Oliver Twist" and "A Tale of Two Cities."
(SFC, 6/17/97, p.E3)(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1812 Feb 7, Lord Byron made his maiden speech in House of Lords.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1818 Feb 7, The first successful U.S. educational magazine, Academician, began publication in New York City.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1820 Feb 7, Samuel Adams Holyoke (57/58), composer, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1827 Feb 7, Ballet (Deserter) was introduced to US at Bowery Theater in NYC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1827 Feb 7, Franz Anton Dimmler (73), composer, died.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1831 Feb 7, The first Belgian Constitution was ratified.
(http://tinyurl.com/po6gghe)
1836 Feb 7, The essays "Sketches by Boz" were published by Charles Dickens.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1837 Feb 7, Sir James Augustus Henry Murray, Scottish lexicographer and editor, was born. He created the Oxford Dictionary.
(HN, 2/7/01)(MC, 2/7/02)
1839 Feb 7, Henry Clay declared in Senate "I had rather be right than president."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1857 Feb 7, A French court acquitted author Gustave Flaubert of obscenity for his serialized novel "Madame Bovary."
(AP, 2/7/08)
1861 Feb 7, The general council of the Choctaw Indian nation adopted a resolution declaring allegiance with the South "in the event a permanent dissolution of the American Union takes place."
(AP, 2/7/07)
1862 Feb 7, Bernard Maybeck (d.1957), architect, was born in NYC. He designed the Palace of Fine Arts in SF and the First Church of Christ Scientist in Berkeley.
(SFEM,12/797, p.46)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Maybeck)
1862 Feb 7, Federal fleet attacked Roanoke Island, NC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1864 Feb 7, Federal troops occupied Jacksonville, Florida.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1865 Feb 7, John Henry Winder (b.1800), US Confederate brig-gen and provost marshal, died. He was in charge of all Union prisoners east of the Mississippi River.
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USACWwinder.htm)
1867 Feb 7, Laura Ingalls Wilder, author, was born. She wrote "Little House in the Big Woods" which was basis for television's "Little House on the Prairie."
(HN, 2/7/99)
1870 Feb 7, Alfred Adler, psychiatrist (Inferiority Complex), was born in Austria.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1871 Feb 7, Karl Wilhelm Eugen Stenhammer, composer, was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1871 Feb 7, Henry Steinway (b.1797), German-American piano maker, died. In 2006 James Barron authored “Piano," a history of the development of the modern piano.
(WSJ, 7/15/06, p.P8)(http://tinyurl.com/qn6dy)
1872 Feb 7, Alcorn A & M College opened.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1878 Feb 7, Pope Pius IX (1846-1878), Giovanni Ferretti (85), died. Revenge-seeking Italian liberals tried to dump his body into the Tiber River. He served 31 years, seven months and 22 days
(PTA, 1980, p.510)(SFC, 9/1/00, p.D4)(AP, 10/15/03)
1882 Feb 7, American pugilist John L. Sullivan became the last of the bare-knuckle world heavyweight champions with his defeat of Patty Ryan in Mississippi City.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_L._Sullivan)
1883 Feb 7, Eubie Blake, ragtime composer, pianist (Memories of You), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1885 Feb 7, Sinclair Lewis (d.1951), American novelist of satire and realism, was born in Sauk Centre, Minnesota. His books include "Arrowsmith" and "Elmer Gantry." “There are two insults which no human will endure: the assertion that he hasn’t a sense of humor, and the doubly impertinent assertion that he has never known trouble." "Winter is not a season, it's an occupation."
(AP, 6/26/98)(AP, 12/22/99)(HNQ, 5/18/98)(HN, 2/7/99)
1891 Feb 7, US Great Blizzard of 1891 began.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1894 Feb 7, The US House of Representatives passed a resolution that prevented the sending of US troops to Hawaii to restore Queen Lili’uokalani.
(ON, 11/02, p.7)
1904 Feb 7, A fire in Baltimore raged for about 30 hours and destroyed more than 1,500 buildings over 80 blocks. The fired caused an estimated $80 million in damages.
(AP, 2/7/97)(SFC, 9/27/99, p.A23)(MC, 2/7/02)
1905 Feb 7, Ulf Svante von Euler-Chelpin, Swedish physiologist, was born.
(HN, 2/7/01)
1905 Feb 7, Congress granted statehood to Oklahoma. New Mexico and Arizona were the only remaining territories. [see 1907]
(HN, 2/7/99)
1905 Feb 7, The Dominican Republic signed a treaty turning over customs collection to US.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1906 Feb 7, Aisingyoro Henry Puyi, the last emperor of China, was born in Beijing.
(SFC, 6/11/97, p.C16)(AP, 2/7/06)
1910 Feb 7, Edmond Rostand's "Chanticleer," premiered in Paris.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1812 Feb 7, A 3rd major earthquake shook New Madrid, Missouri, and for a few hours reversed the course of the Mississippi River. [see Dec 15-16, 1811, Jan 23, 1912]
(NH, 3/1/04, p.67)
1913 Feb 7, Turks lost 5,000 men in a battle with the Bulgarian army in Gallipoli.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1914 Feb 7, Charlie Chaplin debuted "The Tramp" in "Kid Auto Races at Venice."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1914 Feb 7, Steel work was completed on Exposition (Civic) Auditorium, SF.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1915 Feb 7, 1st wireless message sent from a moving train to a station was received.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1915 Feb 7, Fieldmarshal Paul von Hindenburg moved on Russians at Masurian Lakes.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1917 Feb 7, The British steamer California was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a German U-boat.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1918 Feb 7, Singapore businessman Ong Sam Leong (b.1857) died. He made a fortune out of his monopoly on the supply of coolie labor from China to phosphate mines on Christmas Island.
(http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_1461_2009-02-19.html)
1920 Feb 7, Oscar Brand, folk vocalist (Draw Me a Laugh), was born in Winnipeg, Canada.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1920 Feb 7, Adm. Alexander Kolchak (b.1874), commander of the White Army in Siberia during the civil war that followed the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, was executed by a firing squad in Irkutsk about a month after relinquishing command of anti-Bolshevik forces. He was condemned in Soviet law as a counterrevolutionary. In 2004 efforts began to exonerate him.
(AP, 12/7/04)(www.firstworldwar.com/bio/kolchak.htm)
1922 Feb 7, John Willard's "Cat & the Canary," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1924 Feb 7, Mussolini government exchanged diplomats with USSR.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1926 Feb 7, Negro History Week, originated by Carter G. Woodson, was observed for the first time. The 2nd week in February was declared Negro History Week.
(USAT, 2/14/97, p.15A)(HN, 2/7/99)
1928 Feb 7, The United States signed an arbitration treaty with France.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1928 Feb 7, Australian Bert Hinkler took off from London in a two-seat Avro 581E Avian biplane on the first leg of his solo flight from England to Australia. On February 22, after flying 128 hours in less than 16 days, Hinkler's 11,250-mile adventure ended in Darwin, Australia.
(HNQ, 2/7/01)
1931 Feb 7, US opera, "Peter Ibbetson," by Deems Taylor premiered at Met Opera NYC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1931 Feb 7, Amelia Earhart (33), aviatrix, married George Palmer Putnam (45), divorced heir to a publishing empire in Noank, Conn.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.31)(HN, 2/7/99)
1932 Feb 7, Gay Talese, author (Honor Thy Father), was born.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1933 Feb 7, At a Social-Democrat meeting in Berlin thousands cheered as Marxism was pronounced dead.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1934 Feb 7, 1st contract for TVA power was in Tupelo, Miss.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1934 Feb 7, Kathleen Norris, a SF Bay Area novelist based in Palo Alto, summed up a trip to Germany saying Hitler has virtually solved problems of unemployment and poverty. She said the leader was idolized everywhere as the people’s rescuer.
(SSFC, 2/1/09, p.50)
1936 Feb 7, President Roosevelt authorized a flag for the office of the vice president.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1940 Feb 7, Walt Disney's 2nd feature-length movie, "Pinocchio," premiered in NYC.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1941 Feb 7, Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey Orch recorded "Everything Happens to Me."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1943 Feb 7, The government announced that shoe rationing would go into effect in two days, limiting each purchaser to three pairs for the remainder of the year.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1944 Feb 7, Bing Crosby and the John Scott Trotter Orchestra recorded "Swinging on a Star" for Decca Records in Los Angeles.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1944 Feb 7, The Germans launched a [counteroffensive] second attack against the Allied beachhead at Anzio, Italy. They hoped to push the Allies back into the sea.
(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1945 Feb 7, US 76th and 5th Infantry divisions began crossing Sauer.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1947 Feb 7, Arabs and Jews rejected a British proposal to split Palestine.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1948 Feb 7, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower resigned as Army chief of staff and was succeeded by Gen. Omar Bradley.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1949 Feb 7, Joe DiMaggio of the NY Yankees became the 1st $100,000/year baseball player.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1950 Feb 7, The United States recognized Vietnam under the leadership of Emperor Bao Dai, not Ho Chi Minh who was recognized by the Soviets.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1956 Feb 7, Garth Brooks, country vocalist (No Fences), was born in Tulsa, Okla.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1958 Feb 7, The Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team became the LA Dodgers, Inc.
(SFEC, 9/15/96, Par p.14)
1959 Feb 7, Castro proclaimed a new Cuban constitution.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1960 Feb 7, Old handwriting was found in at Qumran, Jordan, near the Dead Sea. [see 1947]
(MC, 2/7/02)
1961 Feb 7, Jane Fonda made her acting debut in the NBC drama "A String of Beads."
(MC, 2/7/02)
1961 Feb 7, Immanuel Olsvanger (b.1888), Polish-born Jewish folklorist, died in Israel.
(Econ, 5/18/13, p.87)(http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Olsvanger)
1962 Feb 7, Sam Snead won the LPGA Royal Poinciano Plaza Golf Invitational.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1962 Feb 7, President Kennedy began the blockade of Cuba.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1963 Feb 7, The "Mona Lisa" was unveiled at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1964 Feb 7, The British band The Beatles began their first American tour as they arrived at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport, where they were greeted by 25,000 screaming fans.
(SFEM, 3/9/96, p.35)(AP, 2/7/97)(HN, 2/7/99)
1964 Feb 7, Baskin-Robbins introduced Beatle Nut ice cream.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1965 Feb 7, U.S. jets hit Don Hoi guerrilla base in reprisal for the Viet Cong raids. Pres. Johnson ordered the bombing of North Vietnam following the deaths of 9 US soldiers near Pleiku.
(HN, 2/7/99)(SFEC, 4/23/00, p.A19)
1965 Feb 7, Cassius Clay became a Muslim and adopted the name Muhammad Ali.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1967 Feb 7, Henry Morgenthau (b.1891), 52nd US secretary of the treasury, died. He served under President Franklin D. Roosevelt from January 1, 1934 to July 22, 1945.
(www.ustreas.gov/education/history/secretaries/hmorgenthaujr.html)
1968 Feb 7, The Arthur Miller play "Price" premiered in NYC.
(www.theatredatabase.com/20th_century/arthur_miller_timeline.html)
1968 Feb 7, North Vietnamese used 11 Soviet-built light tanks to overrun the US Special Forces camp at Lang Vei at the end of an 18-hour long siege.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1971 Feb 7, Switzerland voted to introduce female suffrage at the federal but not the cantonal level.
(WUD, 1994, p. 1688)(AP, 2/7/01)
1974 Feb 7, Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles" opened in movie theaters.
(www.imdb.com/title/tt0071230/combined)
1974 Feb 7, The island nation of Grenada won independence from Britain. This included the northern islands of Carriacou and Petite Martinique.
(SFC, 7/1/97, p.A9)(AP, 2/7/97)(SSFC, 12/11/05, p.F4)
1975 Feb 7, Pres. Edward H. Levi (1911-2000), former president of the Univ. of Chicago, began serving as the attorney general under Pres. Ford.
(WSJ, 3/13/00, p.A46)(http://www-news.uchicago.edu/citations/00/000308.levi-nyt.html)
1978 Feb 7, Ethiopia mounted a counter attack against Somalia.
(HN, 2/7/99)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogaden_War)
1979 Feb 7, Josef Mengele (b.1911), Nazi concentration camp doctor and medical experimenter, accidentally drowned in Bertioga, Brazil. He was secretly buried in another man's grave in Brazil. [See Jun 6, 1985] In 1985 his identity was confirmed by DNA. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Mengele)
1980 Feb 7, A fire in Brooklyn killed Elizabeth Kinsey (27) and her 5 children. In 1981 three men were later convicted of arson and 6 murders. In 2015 the convictions were overturned. Two of men had been paroled in 2012 and a third died in prison in 1989.
(http://tinyurl.com/z7ysmxp)(SFC, 12/17/15, p.A12)
1983 Feb 7, Elizabeth H. Dole was sworn in as the first female secretary of transportation by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court.
(AP, 2/7/03)
1983 Feb 7, Iran opened an invasion in the southeast of Iraq.
(HN, 2/7/99)
1984 Feb 7, Space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart went on the first untethered space walk.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1985 Feb 7, "New York, New York" became the official anthem of NYC.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985)
1985 Feb 7, US drug agent Enrique “Kiki" Camarena Salazar was tortured and killed at a house in Guadalajara in the presence of a half-dozen top Mexican officials. Mexican authorities found his body on March 6 at a ranch east of Guadalajara. In 1992 Ruben Zuno Arce, the brother-in-law of former president Luis Echeverria, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. In 1989 Miguel Angel Felix Gallardo was arrested for complicity in the murder along with drug charges and sentenced to 40 years in prison. In 2000 Gallardo received a 2nd 40-year sentence for smuggling and bribery.
(WSJ, 3/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/20/00, p.A10)(SFC, 8/12/00, p.A11)
1986 Feb 7, US female Figure Skating championship was won by Debi Thomas.
(http://tinyurl.com/nuoe4)
1986 Feb 7, Haitian President-for-Life Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier was ousted from power and fled his country, ending 28 years of family rule. He fled to France with his wife and mother. Henri Namphy became leader of Haiti. Duvalier and his cronies reportedly embezzled some $500 million during his last decade of rule.
(TMC, 1994, p.1986)(SFC,12/31/97, p.A17)(AP, 2/7/97)(WSJ, 4/16/03, p.A1)
1986 Feb 7, The Philippines held a presidential election marred by charges of fraud against the incumbent, Ferdinand E. Marcos. Corazon Aquino defeated incumbent dictator Ferdinand Marcos but fraudulent returns gave the election to Marcos.
(AP, 2/7/06)
1988 Feb 7, Leslie Manigat was sworn in as Haiti's president. However, he lost power the following June.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1989 Feb 7, Bowing to public outrage, both US houses of Congress voted to kill their scheduled 51 percent pay increase.
(AP, 2/7/99)
1989 Feb 7, In Argentina devaluation caused a wild panic in the financial district of Buenos Aires.
(www.studybuddy.nl/english/start.html)
1990 Feb 7, An 811-foot tanker, the American Trader, spilled hundreds of thousands of gallons of Alaskan crude oil off the coast of Huntington Beach, Calif.
(AP, 2/7/00)
1990 Feb 7, Judith Clancy (b.1950), SF artist, died of cancer.
(www.undo.net/cgi-bin/undo/pressrelease/pressrelease.pl?id=1095157331)
1990 Feb 7, In Pakistan riots broke out between rival political parties and 22 people were hurt.
(http://tinyurl.com/htbtm)
1990 Feb 7, The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic annulled the acts of annexation.
(LHC, 2/7/03)
1990 Feb 7, The Soviet Union's Communist Party agreed to let other political parties compete for control of the country, thereby giving up its monopoly on power.
(AP, 2/7/00)
1991 Feb 7, US Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and General Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, left for a visit to the Gulf War zone.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1991 Feb 7, The Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide was sworn in as Haiti’s first democratically elected president.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1992 Feb 7, Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson testified at his rape trial in Indianapolis that his accuser, a Miss Black America contestant, had consented to having sex with him.
(AP, 2/7/02)
1992 Feb 7, In Texas Robert Moreno Ramos used a hammer to kill his 42-year-old wife Leticia, their 7-year-old daughter Abigail and 3-year-old son Jonathan at their home in Progreso. He remarried three days later. In 1993 Ramos was convicted and sentenced to death. Ramos was executed on Nov. 14, 2018.
(http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/cases/1-05.html)(SFC, 11/16/18, p.A7)
1992 Feb 7, The Maastricht Treaty to integrate Europe was signed in Maastricht by the Foreign and Finance Ministers of the Member States. Upon its entry into force on 1 November 1993 during the Delors Commission, it created the three pillars structure of the European Union and led to the creation of the single European currency, the euro.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maastricht_Treaty)
1992 Feb 7, Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin and French President Francois Mitterrand signed a cooperation treaty in Paris.
(AP, 2/7/02)
1993 Feb 7, Commerce Secretary Ron Brown acknowledged on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he'd failed to pay Social Security taxes for a domestic worker.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1994 Feb 7, President Clinton sent Congress his $1.5 trillion budget plan, declaring cuts in hundreds of programs would achieve a deficit-reduction record unequaled since President Truman's administration.
(AP, 2/7/99)
1995 Feb 7, Ramzi Yousef, the alleged mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing, was arrested in Islamabad, Pakistan, after two years as a fugitive.
(AP, 2/7/00)
1996 Feb 7, During a Central America tour, Pope John Paul the Second received a warm welcome in Nicaragua, his first visit there since 1983.
(AP, 2/7/01)
1996 Feb 7, Tamil rebels attacked Sri Lankan troops in the eastern part of the island nation. They killed 11 and lost 15 of their own fighters. The Colombo suicide bombing of last week killed 83.
(WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-1)
1997 Feb 7, Mindful of Boris Yeltsin's ailments, President Clinton agreed to shift their March summit meeting from the United States to Helsinki, Finland.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1997 Feb 7, The Air Force suspended all its flights in restricted training areas on the East Coast after two close calls between National Guard jets and civilian airliners.
(AP, 2/7/97)
1997 Feb 7, The first day of the Chinese New Year. The year of the rat ended and the year of the ox, 4695, began.
(SFEC, 2/2/97, DB. p.7)(SFC, 2/8/97, p.A17)
1998 Feb 7, The Winter Olympic Games opened in Nagano, Japan.
(AP, 2/7/99)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported that the Axial Seamount undersea volcano off the coast of the Pacific Northwest was erupting 5,000 feet below sea level.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported that the 8,000 Sq. mile Larsen B ice sheet in Antarctica was breaking up due to rising global temperatures.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, It was reported that over 1200 Hooker’s sea lion pups had died in the sub-Antarctic islands south of New Zealand from an unknown disease.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, Novelist Lawrence Sanders died at age 78. His debut thriller “The Anderson Tapes" launched his career, and his 38th book was due later this month.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D8)
1998 Feb 7, In Australia over 1000 defense force personnel were called to help clean up parts of the Northern Territory where the worst floods in 40 years resulted from the overflowing Katherine River.
(SFC, 2/7/98, p.A5)
1998 Feb 7, Falco (40), Austrian born pop singer, died while on vacation in an auto crash in the Dominican Republic. His hits included “Der Kommissar," “Rock Me Amadeus," and “Vienna Calling."
(SFEC, 2/8/98, p.D8)
1999 Feb 7, Delegates at the Kosovo peace talks agreed on principles that would keep the province within Yugoslavia for at least 3 more years.
(WSJ, 2/8/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 7, In Germany the Christian Democrats won elections in Hesse state elections putting the Schroeder government short of a majority in the Bundesrat upper house.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A10)
1999 Feb 7, In Indonesia a passenger ship sank between Borneo and Sumatra with 332 people aboard. 19 were reported rescued.
(SFC, 2/11/99, p.C2)
1999 Feb 7, In Jordan King Hussein (63) officially died from Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was succeeded by his eldest son, who takes the throe as Abdullah II. In 2008 “Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace," by Avi Shlaim was published.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A1)(AP, 2/7/00)(Econ, 11/24/07, p.88)(AP, 1/23/13)
1999 Feb 7, In Mexico the state governorship election in Baja California Sur elected Leonel Cota of the PRD to a landslide victory. The PRD lost in Guerrero and clamed fraud and campaign spending violations.
(SFC, 2/9/99, p.A8)(WSJ, 2/09/99, p.A1)
1999 Feb 7, Serbian police seized ICN Pharmaceuticals in Belgrade.
(WSJ, 2/8/99, p.A1,19)
1999 Feb 7, In Zimbabwe Pres. Mugabe suggested that the supreme court resign. He defended the actions of the army which had arrested and tortured 2 journalists.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A10)
2000 Feb 7, With an astonishing comeback to win the Pebble Beach National Pro-Am, Tiger Woods gained his sixth straight PGA Tour victory, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1948 to win six in a row.
(AP, 2/7/01)
2000 Feb 7, Pres. Clinton proposed a $1.84 trillion budget and called for using a projected surplus to strengthen Medicare and health insurance.
(SFC, 2/7/00, p.A3)
2000 Feb 7, An apparent team of computer hackers shut the Yahoo web site down with a "denial-of-service" attack that mimicked millions of phantom users.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A1)(AP, 2/7/01)
2000 Feb 7, Doug Henning, Canadian-born magician, died in Los Angeles at age 52 from liver cancer.
(SFC, 2/9/00, p.C5)(AP, 2/7/01)
2000 Feb 7, In Chechnya Russian forces reported that hundreds of rebels had been killed over the last 2 days near the villages of Katyr-Yurt and Shaami-Yurt.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
2000 Feb 7, In Croatia Stipe Mesic (65) was elected president over Drazen Budisa (51) by a 56.2 to 43.8% margin.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
2000 Feb 7, In England Afghan hijackers at Stansted released 8 passengers with 157 still trapped on the plane.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb 7, In Indonesia 7 people were killed in Aceh province in clashed between rebels and security forces.
(SFC, 2/9/00, p.C3)
2000 Feb 7, Israeli jets launched air attacks deep into Lebanon. Power was knocked out at Baalbek, headquarters of the Hezbollah, and at Beirut and Tripoli. 18 civilians were injured.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Feb 7, Yugoslav Defense Minister Pavle Bulatovic (51) was gunned down in a Belgrade soccer club restaurant and died later in a hospital.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A12)(AP, 2/7/01)
2000 Feb 7, The UN Security Council voted to expand the peacekeeping force in Sierra Leone from 6,000 to 11,100.
(SFC, 2/8/00, p.A14)
2001 Feb 7, The Senate voted to release $582 million in dues owed the United Nations.
(AP, 2/7/02)
2001 Feb 7, The space shuttle Atlantis took off with the Destiny module, a laboratory compartment, for the Int’l. Space Station.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.A3)
2001 Feb 7, In Washington Robert Pickett (47), an accountant with a history of mental illness, was shot in the leg by a Secret Service agent after brandishing a hand gun outside the White House gates.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 7, Dale Evans (born in 1912 as Frances Octavia Smith), singer and wife of Roy Rogers, died at age 88. Her compositions included "Happy Trails" and "The Bible Tells Me So."
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C2)(NW, 12/31/01, p.110)
2001 Feb 7, Anne Morrow Lindbergh (b.1906), wife of Charles Lindbergh, died at age 94. In 1955 she authored "Gift From the Sea," a meditation on women’s lives in the 20th century. In 1999 Susan Hertog authored her biography "Anne Morrow Lindbergh."
(WSJ, 11/29/99, p.A26)(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C2)(NW, 12/31/01, p.108)
2001 Feb 7, Pres. Aristide took power in Haiti for a 2nd term and offered a series of national reforms with plans for new schools, roads, electricity systems and an independent court in each of the country’s 565 townships.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.C3)(AP, 2/11/04)
2001 Feb 7, In Israel Ariel Sharon signaled an end to the peace process begun in 1993 in Oslo and planned something in the spirit of Oslo on an interim level.
(SFC, 2/8/01, p.A12)
2002 Feb 7, Pres. Bush met with Israel’s PM Sharon and said he would continue to press the Palestinian Authority to crack down on terrorism. Bush rebuffed a plea to sever ties with Arafat.
(SFC, 2/8/02, p.A8)(WSJ, 2/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 7, The Bush administration allowed Geneva accords to cover Taliban fighters but not members of al Qaeda.
(SFC, 2/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 7, A US federal court ruled that it is unconstitutional to sentence a felon to 25 years to life for shoplifting, which was allowed under the California “three strikes law."
(SFC, 2/8/02, p.A1)
2002 Feb 7, Former Enron chief executive Jeffrey Skilling insisted to skeptical lawmakers that he knew of nothing improper about the complex web of partnerships that brought down the company.
(AP, 2/7/03)
2002 Feb 7, Authorities in Oklahoma captured the last of four escaped prison inmates from Texas who'd been on the run for more than a week.
(AP, 2/7/03)
2002 Feb 7, In Liberia rebel forces, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, attacked Klay Junction 25 miles north of Monrovia.
(SFC, 2/9/02, p.A3)
2003 Feb 7, President Bush courted the leaders of France and China in an uphill struggle to win U.N. backing for war with Iraq.
(AP, 2/7/04)
2003 Feb 7, The US moved its terror alert status to orange, the 2nd highest level. Attorney General John Ashcroft said the government had received intelligence information, corroborated by multiple sources, that Osama bin Laden's terror organization sought to attack Americans at home or abroad during the annual hajj pilgrimage to the holy Saudi city of Mecca.
(AP, 2/8/03)
2003 Feb 7, Garry Kasparov (39), chess master, played to a 3-3 tie against the Deep Junior computer program.
(SFC, 2/8/03, p.A2)
2003 Feb 7, Tom Christerson (71), the longest-living recipient of a fully self-contained artificial heart, died at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky., after 512 days on the AbioCor.
(AP, 2/7/04)
2003 Feb 7, Chechen rebel attacks and land mines killed 10 soldiers and police over the last 24 hours.
(AP, 2/8/03)
2003 Feb 7, In Bogota, Colombia, a car bomb tore through the El Nogal social club, killing 36 people, wounding 162. FARC rebels were blamed.
(AP, 2/8/03)(SFC, 2/8/03, p.A12)(AP, 2/7/04)
2003 Feb 7, Three Tamil Tiger rebels blew up their boat, killing themselves, after they were found trying to smuggle an anti-aircraft gun and hundreds of rounds of ammunition into Sri Lanka.
(AP, 2/7/03)
2004 Feb 7, John Kerry scored decisive wins in Michigan and Washington state Democratic presidential primaries.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2004 Feb 7, In Haiti police reinforcements fought bloody battles with gunmen as they tried to retake Gonaives from rebels who seized it. At least 7 police and 2 militants were killed.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2004 Feb 7, An Israeli helicopter fired a missile into a car traveling in a crowded Gaza City street, killing Aziz Mahmoud Shami, a leader of the militant Islamic Jihad group and a 12-year-old boy on his way to school. The attack wounded 10 Palestinians, three of them critically.
(AP, 2/7/04)
2004 Feb 7, In northern Kenya tribal fighting between cattle rustlers and herdsmen killed at least 13 people, including three children.
(AP, 2/11/04)
2004 Feb 7, Nearly 400 members of Yasser Arafat's ruling Fatah Party resigned to protest what they call corruption and bad leadership within the group.
(AP, 2/7/04)
2004 Feb 7, Sri Lanka's president dissolved parliament, paving the way for elections nearly three years ahead of schedule.
(AP, 2/8/04)
2005 Feb 7, Pres. Bush proposed a $2.57 trillion budget that would slash domestic programs including entitlements such as Medicaid, farm subsidies and veterans benefits. The budget would worsen federal deficits by $42 billion over the next five years.
(SFC, 2/8/05, p.A1)(AP, 2/7/06)
2005 Feb 7, Defrocked priest Paul Shanley, the most notorious figure in the sex scandal that rocked the Boston Archdiocese, was convicted of repeatedly raping and fondling a boy at his church during the 1980s. Shanley was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2005 Feb 7, IBM, Toshiba and Sony disclosed the architectural design of a new, jointly developed, multi-core processor called the Cell.
(Econ, 2/12/05, p.77)(www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS2972427392.html)
2005 Feb 7, Australia's central bank warned that interest rates, stable at 5.25 percent since December 2003, may be raised within months amid signs of renewed inflationary pressures.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, Cuba began an island-wide ban on smoking in public places such as stores, theaters, and office buildings.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, In England and Wales new laws came into effect that allow pubs, clubs and other drinking venues to apply to stay open 24 hours a day.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, Ellen MacArthur (28) of Britain completed her solo sail around the world in just over 71 days and 14 hours, shaving 32 hours off the previous record.
(AP, 2/8/05)
2005 Feb 7, The EU head office called for closer coordination among all member governments to hunt down and prosecute those illegally spreading unsolicited e-mails, or spam, across the 25-nation bloc.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, Insurgents struck at Iraqi police forces with a suicide bomb, a car bomb and mortars in the cities of Mosul and Baqouba, killing 31 people.
(AP, 2/7/05)(SFC, 2/8/05, p.A6)
2005 Feb 7, US troops manning a checkpoint found 4 Egyptian technicians who had been kidnapped the previous day in Baghdad, freeing them and arresting some of the abductors.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, John Githongo, Kenya president's adviser on corruption, stepped down. The US in response quickly suspended $2.5 million in funding for anti-corruption work.
(AP, 2/11/05)
2005 Feb 7, Pakistan, as part of a peace deal in south Waziristan, paid 4 tribal militants a total of $842,000 so they could pay back money received from al Qaeda to fight Pakistani troops.
(WSJ, 2/10/05, p.A10)
2005 Feb 7, In the Philippines hundreds of armed followers of a jailed former Muslim rebel leader attacked government troops and occupied at least one army detachment on violent southern Jolo island, sparking clashes that killed at least 12 soldiers.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, A Saudi woman was beheaded after she was convicted of murdering her mother-in-law. Noura bint Khalaf al-Harbi was found guilty of setting her mother-in-law, Noura bint Salem al-Harbi, on fire as she slept following a dispute.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, Spain launched an immigrant amnesty program. As many as 80,000 new residency permits were expected.
(WSJ, 2/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Feb 7, In Sri Lanka E. Koushalyan, the LTTE's political wing leader for the eastern province, was killed in an ambush along with four other senior rebels and former Tamil legislator Chandra Nehru. Military officials said they suspected the attack was carried out by a breakaway faction of the Tamil Tigers led by the former number two in the leadership, known as Karuna.
(AP, 2/8/05)(Econ, 2/26/05, p.40)
2005 Feb 7, Faure Gnassingbe was sworn in as president of Togo, two days after the death of his father.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan suspended the head of the UN oil-for-food program in Iraq and a senior official who dealt with contracts, following an independent investigation that accused them of misconduct.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Feb 7, The freighter M/V Joekulfell sank in the North Atlantic off the Faeroe Islands, killing four crewmembers and leaving two others missing. Five were rescued by helicopter. The Samskip company owned the Isle of Man-flagged vessel. The vessel departed from the Latvian port of Liepaja and was headed to Iceland.
(AP, 2/8/05)(http://tinyurl.com/cdza7)
2006 Feb 7, The US Dept. of Defense submitted a budget request for $439.3 billion for FY 2007. This was over 7% more than for FY 2006.
(Econ, 2/11/06, p.29)(http://tinyurl.com/rvmbl)
2006 Feb 7, US federal Judge Kathryn Ferguson penalized the law firm of Gilbert, Heintz & Randolph $13 million for conflicts of interest while working on the Congoleum asbestos bankruptcy, while at the same time representing some 10,000 people with asbestos claims against the New Jersey flooring manufacturer.
(WSJ, 4/24/06, p.B1)(http://tinyurl.com/lg4qf)
2006 Feb 7, Phoenix Coyotes assistant coach Rick Tocchet was charged with financing a nationwide gambling ring based out of New Jersey.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2006 Feb 7, SF Supervisor Chris Daly placed a resolution on the board’s consent calendar calling for the impeachment of Pres. Bush and VP Cheney.
(SFC, 2/8/06, p.B1)
2006 Feb 7, Alabama state officials reported four more rural Baptist churches following rash of suspected arsons that burned five others south of Birmingham last week [see Feb 3].
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Nevada’s State Gaming Control Board sent a letter to casinos expressing concern about “gangster rap."
(WSJ, 3/28/06, p.A1)
2006 Feb 7, General Motors Corp., under shareholder pressure to return to profitability, announced it is cutting in half its yearly dividend to $1 a share and reducing the salaries of its chairman and senior leadership team.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Microsoft said it will offer a new security service to PC users for $49.95 per year.
(SFC, 2/8/06, p.C3)
2006 Feb 7, In southern Afghanistan a suspected suicide bomber blew up a guard post outside police headquarters in Kandahar, killing 13 people and wounded 11.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In western Afghanistan a Turkish engineer, an Indian national and their driver were killed when a bomb struck their vehicle.
(AFP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, NATO peacekeepers exchanged fire with protesters who attacked their base in the second straight day of violent demonstrations in Afghanistan over the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. One demonstrator was killed and dozens wounded.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Mario Condello (53), an Australian underworld figure due to face court on incitement to murder charges, was shot dead in his driveway overnight, bringing the toll in a gangland war to 28. Melbourne's gang war began in 1998 when self-styled "Godfather" Alphonse Gangitano, 40, was shot dead in his laundry.
(Reuters, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales asked the US to reconsider a proposed cut in anti-drug aid, and called on the world to strengthen drug-fighting alliances.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Indians from Brazil and four other South American countries called for the "resurrection" of an Indian nation, the 250th anniversary of the killing of a tribal chief by European soldiers.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, A British jury convicted firebrand Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri of inciting followers to kill non-Muslims in speeches at his London mosque, which has been linked to Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Officials in Canada announced an agreement to close 5 million acres in British Columbia’s Great Bear Rain Forest to logging. Loggers will be guaranteed a right to selectively cut in 10 million acres of the forest.
(SFC, 2/7/06, p.A6)
2006 Feb 7, An apparent gas explosion destroyed a two-story military barracks in Chechnya, killing at least two people and injuring 32.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, An aid group that provides food to tens of thousands of people in war-ravaged Chechnya suspended its operations after Chechen officials banned all Danish organizations because of the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Ramon Isaza (65), a founder of Colombia's anti-rebel paramilitary movement, laid down his weapon, ending nearly three decades of outlawed, jungle warfare. Isaza was joined by 990 fighters from his Medio Magdalena Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, or AUC, handing over 754 weapons, 15 vehicles and abundant munitions.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Costa Rican electoral officials began counting votes by hand in a laborious effort to determine the winner of one of the country's closest presidential races in history.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In Germany Mounir el Motassadeq (31), a Moroccan convicted of belonging to a terrorist cell that included three Sept. 11 hijackers, was freed from prison after a federal court ruled he shouldn't be jailed with appeals still pending.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Haitians jammed polling stations as UN peacekeepers fanned out to guard the country's first presidential election in nearly six years.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In Indonesia scientists exploring an isolated jungle in remote Papua province reported the discovery of dozens of new species of frogs, butterflies and plants, as well as mammals hunted to near extinction elsewhere.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, A prominent Iranian newspaper said it would hold a competition for cartoons on the Holocaust to test whether the West extends the principle of freedom of expression to the Nazi genocide as it did to the caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Masked gunmen assassinated a Sunni Arab cleric who headed the city council in once-restive city of Fallujah, and two bombs exploded minutes apart near a central Baghdad square, killing at least seven people and wounding 20.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In Ivory Coast the UN was due to enforce sanctions on three political leaders judged to have blocked a peace process.
(Reuters, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Kuwait's new Emir Sheik Sabah Al Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah (76) turned to his brother, Sheik Nawwaf Al Ahmed Al Sabah (68), as the new crown prince and successor to the throne. Sheik Nasser Al Mohammed Al Sabah (65) was appointed PM and directed to form a new government.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, The owner of a Mexican newspaper in Nuevo Laredo said there will be no more investigative coverage of drug gangs, a day after the paper's offices were sprayed with bullets and a reporter hospitalized with five gunshots.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, In Nepal Communist rebels killed at least seven security forces and wounded 15 in two overnight attacks. Government troops were given orders to shoot anyone who tries to disrupt municipal elections.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, A ship with 2,000 tons of donated rice from India arrived in North Korea. The Indian government has donated humanitarian aid, including food and medicine, to North Korea on nine occasions since 1995.
(AFP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Russia announced that it would pay off a big chunk of its sovereign debt ahead of schedule this year. Russia also announced plans to forgive $668 million owed to Moscow by 16 of the world’s highly indebted countries.
(WSJ, 2/8/06, p.A6)
2006 Feb 7, It was reported that Russia’s Yukos oil company, which says it owes $6.3 billion in back tax claims, has sold a 49 percent stake in Slovak pipeline operator Transpetrol for $105 million, to Russia’s Russneft oil company.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, South Korean conglomerate Samsung Group said it would donate more than $800 million in corporate and private assets to charity as part of an apology for several recent scandals.
(AP, 2/7/06)
2006 Feb 7, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Sri Lanka's former president (1994-2005), returned her expensive retirement gift, a 1.5 acre (0.68 hectare) area of land near the national parliament to the state, after legal action was filed against her.
(AFP, 2/8/06)
2007 Feb 7, The Washington Post reported that President George W. Bush has approved plans for the US Treasury Department to block US commercial bank transactions connected to Sudan's government, including those involving oil revenue.
(AFP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced its approval of sales of Alli, a reduced-strength version of the prescription diet drug Xenical. The first diet pill for over the counter sale hit stores June 15.
(AP, 2/8/07)(SFC, 6/14/07, p.A1)
2007 Feb 7, Indictments were filed in New Jersey against 3 US Army Reserve officers for taking part in a bid-rigging scam that steered millions of dollars for Iraq reconstruction to a contractor in exchange for cash, luxury cars and jewelry.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A12)
2007 Feb 7, In SF Mayor Gavin Newsom met with Lithuania’s Pres. Valdas Adamkus at the Fairmont Hotel following an address at the World Affairs Council. Pres. Adamkus, accompanied by a Lithuanian business delegation, was here for a one week visit seeking US trade opportunities and potential investors.
(www.president.lt/en/news.full/7476)
2007 Feb 7, Blowing snow and intense cold was blamed for two more deaths, a total of 13 nationwide since the cold settled in, and kept schools closed for a second and in some cases a third day across much of Ohio and West Virginia.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Chicago Equity Office Properties (EOP), America’s largest commercial landlord, accepted a cash offer from The Blackstone Group, a private equity firm that valued the company at nearly $39 billion (including debt).
(Econ, 2/10/07, p.80)
2007 Feb 7, Austrian authorities said they have uncovered a major international child pornography ring involving more than 2,360 suspects from 77 countries, including hundreds in the United States, who paid to view videos of young children being sexually abused.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, A twin-engine plane crashed in Brazil’s Amazon jungle, killing all six people aboard.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Six people were hurt by a third letter bomb in three days aimed at British motoring-related organizations and police are investigating if the attacks are part of a coordinated campaign.
(Reuters, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Aron Groiss, director of research at the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, presented a study in London saying textbooks used in Iran's schools are instilling students with hatred toward the West, especially the United States, and urging them to become "martyrs" in a global holy war against countries perceived to be enemies of Islam.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Canada’s Nortel Networks Corp. said it will slash 2,900 jobs, or 8.5 percent of its workforce, over the next two years and shift another 1,000 employees to lower-cost locations like China, India and Mexico as North America's biggest maker of telephone equipment struggles to shore up its profits.
(Reuters, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In central China an overcrowded passenger vehicle returning from a wedding party plunged off a cliff, killing 16 members of an extended family.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Colombia's top court ruled that gay couples, who have lived together for more than 2 years, should have the same rights to shared assets as heterosexual couples. The decision by the Constitutional Court marked the first recognition of gay couples' rights in Colombia.
(AP, 2/9/07)(Econ, 3/10/07, p.34)
2007 Feb 7, Georgia signed a regional cooperation agreement with Azerbaijan and Turkey which included plans for a railway connecting the three countries.
(WSJ, 2/28/07, p.A6)(http://tinyurl.com/2gbbgg)
2007 Feb 7, At least 15 people were killed in attacks across Iraq, including two employees of the government-funded Iraqi Media Network in Baghdad. A female census worker was shot to death while she was riding to work with her husband in the northern city of Mosul. A Sea Knight CH-46 helicopter went down northwest of Baghdad, the fifth helicopter lost in Iraq in just over two weeks. All 7 aboard were killed. Four US Marines were killed in fighting in Anbar province from wounds sustained due to enemy action in two separate incidents. Another 3 US soldiers were killed in fighting Anbar province.
(AP, 2/7/07)(AP, 2/8/07)(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 7, An Italian judge ordered a U.S. soldier to stand trial in absentia for the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence agent at a checkpoint in Baghdad on March 4, 2005.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Michel Niaucel, a French diplomat with the European Union in Ivory Coast, was shot to death in his home overnight. Niaucel was in charge of West Africa security operations for the EU.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Japan's PM Shinzo Abe pledged to regain four disputed northern islands from Russia, saying it was time to end the bickering between Tokyo and Moscow over the prime fishing grounds.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The US Embassy issued a travel advisory saying violent crime was on the increase in Kenya.
(SSFC, 2/11/07, p.G2)
2007 Feb 7, The Mozambique government said floods have killed 29 people and wrecked thousands of homes after torrential rain and hurricanes swept through the country in the past two weeks.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, Gunmen seized a French oil worker in Nigeria's restive southern petroleum-producing region. Kidnappers there also seized a woman from the Philippines. Kidnappers released a British oil-worker after the man taken in a raid last month fell ill. President Olusegun Obasanjo called for a high-level meeting to address the violence.
(AP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Russia's defense minister laid out an ambitious plan for building new intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear submarines and possibly aircraft carriers.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Saudi Arabia rival Palestinian leaders began open-ended talks in Mecca optimistic that they could reach an agreement to end their bloody street battles and resume the peace process with Israel.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Somalia doctors said a cholera outbreak has killed more than 115 people and hospitalized 724 in towns where people were forced to use contaminated water from a flooded river.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In South Africa Chin’s President Hu Jintao promised to increase imports from Africa, responding to fears about the trade deficit that increased as China pumped unprecedented aid, investment and loans into the poor but resource-rich continent.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, The Spanish Civil Guard said authorities have arrested 52 people in a major crackdown on a suspected ring of antiquities looters from dozens of sites in southern Spain.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 7, In Sri Lanka Selliah Parameswar, a Hindu priest who welcomed President Mahinda Rajapakse to a former guerrilla bastion, was dragged out of his house in Batticaloa district and killed by a group of unidentified gunmen. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) blamed a breakaway group allegedly linked to government forces.
(AFP, 2/8/07)
2007 Feb 7, Officials in Venezuela confirmed that Venezuela will buy whatever legal products Bolivia can make from coca leaf as part of an effort to wean farmers from the cocaine industry.
(SFC, 2/8/07, p.A2)
2007 Feb 7, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe, under mounting pressure over a world record-busting inflation rate and escalating strike action in the public sector, sacked his finance minister. A union chief said 60 Zimbabwean junior doctors have been sacked from Harare's main hospital after going on strike in December demanding salary hikes.
(AFP, 2/7/07)
2008 Feb 7, The US Congress passed an emergency plan that rushed rebates of $600 to $1,200 to most taxpayers and $300 checks to disabled veterans, the elderly and other low-income people. President Bush indicated he would sign the measure.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, The US said it was barring 10 leading Kenyan politicians from entering the US, the first time Washington has blamed them for the postelection violence that has brought the African country to the brink of collapse.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, suspended his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination.
(SFC, 2/8/08, p.A1)
2008 Feb 7, US prosecutors said Merck will pay $671 million to settle claims it overcharged government health programs for 4 drugs and gave doctors fees and gifts to induce them to prescribe the drugs. The case was triggered when a sales manager filed suit in 2001 and a Louisiana doctor exposed overcharging.
(SFC, 2/8/08, p.C2)
2008 Feb 7, In Los Angeles a man barricaded himself in a house after telling police he had killed 3 relatives, then opened fire on a SWAT team, killing one officer and wounding another. Randall Simmons (51) was the first SWAT officer killed in the line of duty in the unit’s 41-year history.
(AP, 2/7/08)(SFC, 2/8/08, p.A4)
2008 Feb 7, In Port Wentworth, Georgia, an explosion and fire at a sugar refinery owned by Imperial Sugar, based in Sugar Land, Texas, left 11 people dead. Imperial had acquired Savannah Foods & Industries, the producer of Dixie Crystals, in 1997. The acquisition doubled the size of the company, making it the largest processor and refiner of sugar in the US.
(AP, 2/8/08)(SFC, 2/11/08, p.A10)(AP, 2/24/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Kirkwood, Missouri, a gunman stormed a council meeting, yelled "Shoot the mayor!" and opened fire, critically wounding Mayor Mike Swoboda (69), killing two police officers and three city officials. Swoboda died on Sep 6. Charles Le "Cookie" Thornton, who had lost a free-speech lawsuit against the St. Louis suburb 10 days earlier, was fatally shot by law enforcers. He had claimed in the past city leaders stifled and harassed him.
(AP, 2/8/08)(SFC, 9/7/08, p.A3)
2008 Feb 7, In Portsmouth, Ohio, William Michael Layne (56) stabbed his estranged wife in front of her 5th grade class and girl friend in an alley behind her home and then shot himself dead in a standoff with police. Both women were in critical condition.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Afghanistan a suicide car bomb targeting a NATO convoy left three soldiers lightly wounded in eastern Khost province. A bungled suicide attack hurt two civilians in southwestern Nimroz province.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, In eastern Algeria suspected Islamist militants gunned down eight police officers in a late night ambush outside the village of Ain R'Ghiya. In a separate morning attack, another officer was killed and one injured in the village of Boukalfa.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, A new security pact between Australia and Indonesia came into force at a ceremony in Perth attended by the foreign ministers of the at-times testy neighbors.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, Belize's opposition United Democratic Party won a landslide victory in general elections, ending PM Said Musa's 10 years in office. UDP leader Dean Barrow was to be sworn in as the country's first black prime minister the next day.
(AP, 2/8/08)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.44)
2008 Feb 7, Bolivia's foreign minister said that the world has an obligation to send aid to flood-ravaged areas, linking a disaster that has killed 49 people to global climate change.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, The Bank of England’s monetary policy committee (MPC) lowered interest rates from 5,75% to 5.5%.
(Econ, 2/9/08, p.63)
2008 Feb 7, Chadian President Idriss Deby Itno issued a "solemn call" for a European peacekeeping force for Darfur refugees, to deploy as soon as possible. The president also said he was "ready to pardon" six French aid workers convicted in December of trying to kidnap more than 100 children they said were orphans from Darfur.
(AP, 2/7/08)(AFP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, Chile announced it will try to head off power rationing by cutting electrical voltage, distributing efficient light bulbs and extending daylight savings time.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Egypt at least 29 people, including children, were killed and 16 injured in a traffic pileup blamed on early morning fog southeast of Cairo.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Greece senior clergy elected Metropolitan Bishop Ieronymos of Thebes as the new leader of the powerful Orthodox Church to succeed the late Archbishop Christodoulos.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In western India Dynaneshwar Sathawane, a local leader of the ruling Congress party, was stripped, stoned and beaten to death by a mob during a rally of nearly 500 people in Maharashtra state.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 7, Experts said Iran's nuclear project has developed its own version of an advanced centrifuge to churn out enriched uranium much faster than its previous machines.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Iraq gunmen stormed a house near Baqouba, separated out the women and children inside and killed three brothers, all members of a US-backed neighborhood watch group. A roadside bomb killed three awakening council members and wounded eight others south of Baghdad. A truckload of weapons, ammunition and explosives were seized at an Iraqi police checkpoint at the entrance to Karbala. US troops captured an alleged Shiite militia leader and three other suspects in a raid south of Baghdad. 15 suspected militants were detained in sweeps through Sadr City, and one person was killed.
(AP, 2/7/08)(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, Israeli ground forces backed by warplanes exchanged fire with Hamas gunmen in the northern Gaza Strip, killing a teacher and six militants in escalating violence that is hobbling peace efforts. Israeli troops entered the town of Qabatiya before dawn to arrest an Islamic Jihad militant. Soldiers shot a mentally disabled man, Taysir Nazal (56), as he emerged from his home, in his legs. Nazal died from his wounds on Feb 14.
(AP, 2/7/08)(AP, 2/14/08)
2008 Feb 7, Authorities in Italy and the US conducted raids targeting dozens of alleged members of Mafia clans who controlled drug trafficking between the two sides of the Atlantic. A 169-page indictment in the US went back 3 decades and included at least 7 murders. The main targets in NY included 3 of the “five families" controlling organized crime in America: the Genovese, Bonanno and Gambino families.
(AP, 2/7/08)(Econ, 2/16/08, p.41)
2008 Feb 7, Libya’s National Oil Corp and Indonesia signed a deal for the north African state to supply the world's most populous Muslim nation with crude oil for the next 20 years.
(AFP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, Mexican soldiers seized nearly 10 tons of marijuana, a machine gun, scores of assault rifles and three grenades in a raid just across the border from Texas.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, NATO defense ministers held talks on Afghanistan in Lithuania. France agreed to help Canada in fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, Nepalese authorities arrested Amit Kumar, the alleged mastermind of a shadowy organ transplant operation in India that illegally removed hundreds of kidneys, sometimes from unwilling donors, at a jungle resort in southern Nepal (see Jan 30).
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, Pakistani police arrested two suspects in the suicide attack that killed opposition leader Benazir Bhutto. A team from Scotland Yard returned to Pakistan to report the conclusions of their probe into the assassination. 3 men were killed and 13 others wounded when a bomb exploded in southwestern Baluchistan province.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, The OSCE’s election monitoring organization said that it will not observe Russia's presidential election next month because of the "severe restrictions" imposed by the Kremlin.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, In Sri Lanka government troops attacked rebel bunkers along the northern front lines, triggering gunbattles that killed 34 rebels and one soldier.
(AP, 2/9/08)
2008 Feb 7, Tanzania's PM Edward Lowassa and two Cabinet ministers resigned over a corruption scandal involving a contract with a nonexistent firm supposedly based in the US. Pres. Jakaya Kikwete dissolved the entire Cabinet as a result.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2008 Feb 7, Turkey’s lawmakers voted to approve a constitutional amendment allowing female students to enter universities wearing Islamic head scarves, a move that many secular Turks view as an attempt to impose religion on their daily lives.
(AP, 2/7/08)
2008 Feb 7, The WHO warned in a new report that the "tobacco epidemic" is growing and could claim 1 billion lives by the end of the century unless governments dramatically step up efforts to curb smoking.
(AP, 2/8/08)
2009 Feb 7, San Francisco ushered in the Year of the Ox with its annual Chinese New Year parade.
(SSFC, 2/8/09, p.B1)
2009 Feb 7, Blossom Dearie (b.1926), jazz pianist, singer and songwriter, died in NYC.
(SFC, 2/11/09, p.B7)
2009 Feb 7, In Australia searing temperatures and wind blasts created a firestorm that swept across a swath of the country's Victoria state. On “Black Saturday" some 2298 homes were destroyed with a death toll of 173. The town of Marysville and several hamlets in the Kinglake district, both about 50 miles (100 km) north of Melbourne, were utterly devastated. In 2012 James Sokaluk was jailed for at least 14 years for starting a blaze that killed 10 people and destroyed more than 150 homes at Churchill.
(AFP, 2/8/09)(Econ, 1/14/12, p.61)(AFP, 4/27/12)
2009 Feb 7, In Bolivia President Evo Morales and thousands of supporters celebrated the new constitution as it took effect, saying the new document will enshrine indigenous rights and end centuries of oppression. It renamed the former republic the “Plurinational State of Bolivia," effective as of Jan 22, 2010.
(AP, 2/7/09)(SSFC, 1/20/13, p.P3)
2009 Feb 7, A Bolivian woman died from an injection of urine allegedly administered by her friend as a form of health therapy. Investigating prosecutor Oscar Flores later said that Gabriela Ascarrunz (35) died of an "infection caused by urine that was injected by fashion designer Monica Schultz."
(AP, 2/11/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Brazil 4 people at the rear of a plane that crashed in a muddy Amazon river managed to open an emergency door and swim to safety as the aircraft sank, dragging 24 others to their death.
(AP, 2/8/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Ecuador President Rafael Correa ordered the expulsion of a top US diplomat he accused of suspending $340,000 in annual aid because Ecuador would not allow the US to veto appointments to the anti-smuggling police.
(AP, 2/7/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Ethiopia Brian Adkins (25) was killed in his home in Addis Ababa. He was serving as a consular officer at the US Embassy there. A suspect was arrested on Feb 11.
(AP, 2/11/09)(www.huffingtonpost.com/news/africa)
2009 Feb 7, In Antananarivo, Madagascar, at least 28 people were killed by security forces during anti-government protests. Arrest warrants were issued the next day for those deemed responsible for the political violence. A week of violence left up to 100 people dead.
(SFC, 2/9/09, p.A2)(Econ, 3/21/09, p.50)
2009 Feb 7, Officials in Morocco said heavy rains have claimed 24 lives and forced 2,000 people to be evacuated over the past week.
(AFP, 2/7/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Gaza Hasan al-Hijazi, who was shot by three masked men. Hamas later issued a statement calling the killing a "mistake."
(AP, 2/14/09)
2009 Feb 7, In Venezuela tens of thousands of protesters marched in Caracas to oppose a constitutional amendment that could allow President Hugo Chavez to run for re-election indefinitely.
(AP, 2/7/09)
2010 Feb 7, The New Orleans Saints capped off an outstanding season with an upset over the Indianapolis Colts, 31-17, in Super Bowl XLIV. The Saints' victory over Indianapolis was watched by more than 106 million people, surpassing the 1983 finale of "M-A-S-H" to become the most-watched program in US television history.
(AP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 7, In Daly City, Ca., a fight at the Little Caesars Pizza near King and Callan left Jessy Wiley (21) of South San Francisco dead. In 2012 three suspected Norteno gang members were convicted in relation to Wiley’s death.
(SFC, 3/27/12, p.A2)
2010 Feb 7, In Connecticut an explosion during a test of natural gas lines at the Kleen Energy Systems plant in Middletown killed at least 5 workers. The 620-megawatt plant was being built to produce energy primarily using natural gas.
(SFC, 2/8/10, p.A6)
2010 Feb 7, In Afghanistan 2 two British soldiers were killed by an explosion in Sangin in Helmand Province, taking the death toll in Afghanistan to 255 since 2001. This raised Britain's death toll to that of the Falklands war.
(AFP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 7, In Canada Air Force Col. Russell Williams (46) was arrested in Ottawa and charged with first degree murder in the deaths of 2 women. He was also charged in the sexual assaults of 2 other women. In late April Williams was also charged with 82 counts of burglary. On Oct 18 Williams pleaded guilty to more than 80 crimes over more than two years, including murder, sexual assault and burglary.
(SFC, 2/9/10, p.A2)(SFC, 4/30/10, p.A2)(Reuters, 10/19/10)
2010 Feb 7, Andre Kolingba (73), former Central African Republic general and coup leader (1981-1993), died in Paris.
(SFC, 5/22/96, p.A9)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9_Kolingba)(AFP, 2/8/10)
2010 Feb 7, Costa Rica held elections and elected its first woman president. Laura Chinchilla (50), a mother and a social conservative, who opposed abortion and gay marriage, won 47% of the vote after campaigning to continue free market policies. She served as vice president under current Pres. Oscar Arias. Otton Solis of the Citizens Action Party, got 25% of the votes. He and the other main rival, Libertarian Otto Guevara, quickly conceded defeat. Chinchilla’s National Liberation Party was the largest in congress, but held only 24 of 57 seats.
(AP, 2/7/10)(AP, 2/8/10)(Econ, 2/13/10, p.41)(Econ, 5/8/10, p.40)
2010 Feb 7, Newspapers said Toyota will recall 300,000 Prius hybrid vehicles because of brake flaws. Toyota said that it will soon announce plans to deal with braking problems in its prized Prius hybrid amid reports it has decided to issue a recall for the latest model in Japan, a possible new embarrassment for the world's biggest automaker.
(AFP, 2/7/10)(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, India again successfully test-fired a nuclear-capable missile that can hit targets across much of Asia and the Middle East. It was the fourth test of the Agni III missile.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad ordered his country's atomic agency to begin enriching uranium to a higher level, a move that's likely to deepen international suspicion over the country's intentions for its nuclear program.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, Iran's state media said Tehran has arrested seven people linked to the US-funded Radio Farda and accused some them of working for American spy agencies.
(AP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, A Libyan court dropped a case against Rashid Hamdani, a Swiss businessman for alleged illegal business activities, clearing the way for him to go home after 19 months stuck in the country.
(AFP, 2/7/10)
2010 Feb 7, Ukrainians voted between two presidential candidates in a run-off between PM Yulia Tymoshenko and opposition leader Viktor Yanukovich which could push the country into a fresh bout of instability. Yanukovich ended with 48.95% to Tymoshenko's 45.47%, a lead of 3.48 percentage points or some 888,000 votes.
(Reuters, 2/7/10)(AP, 2/10/10)
2011 Feb 7, A federal jury in Baton Rouge, La., convicted Wen Chyu Liu (74), a former Dow Chemical research scientist, of conspiracy to commit trade secret theft and perjury.
(SFC, 2/8/11, p.A6)
2011 Feb 7, Internet company AOL Inc. said it is buying news hub Huffington Post in a $315 million deal that represents a bold bet on the future of online news. Founded in 2005, Huffington Post is owned by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer and a group of other investors. The site attracts 25 million monthly visitors.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Filmmaker Michael Moore sued Harvey and Bob Weinstein, accusing the brothers of "Hollywood accounting tricks" and "financial deception" that cheated him out of at least $2.7 million in profits from the hit documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004).
(Reuters, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Afghanistan a suicide bomber killed one person and wounded five others in Kandahar city, hours after attackers gunned down a local government chief in the country's volatile eastern borderlands. David Hillman, a retired customs officer who had worked for the US government for 30 years, died in the blast at the Inland Customs Warehouse in Kandahar. Giles Duley (39), British photographer, was severely injured in a roadside bombing during a foot patrol in Kandahar province. He underwent multiple amputations and was flown back to Britain for further treatment.
(AP, 2/7/11)(AP, 2/9/11)(AFP, 2/12/11)
2011 Feb 7, Algerian authorities announced they have banned an opposition rally set for the capital on Feb 12 to call for an end to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's rule. Pro-democracy demonstrators said they will go ahead with the planned march.
(AFP, 2/7/11)(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Western Australia firefighters battled two wildfires, water bombing them from above as they tried to stop their spread. One on the outskirts of Perth destroyed at least 40 homes and left a firefighter injured.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Bangladesh authorities raided the headquarters of the opposition party in the capital as they tried to end the group's strike to protest spiraling commodity prices and crime. In other parts of the country, police fired tear gas and arrested protesters.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Brazil a massive fire consumed the warehouses where Rio de Janeiro's samba groups store the props and costumes for Brazil's largest Carnival parade.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported that scientists in Britain have successfully tested a vaccine which could work against all known flu strains.
(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Cambodian and Thai troops clashed for a 4th straight day as the UN chief called for "maximum restraint" in a border dispute that has claimed 7 lives and displaced thousands. On April 6 the London-based Cluster Munition Coalition said Thailand's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva confirmed the army had fired 155mm cluster shells into Cambodia.
(AFP, 2/7/11)(AP, 4/6/11)
2011 Feb 7, Egypt's embattled regime announced a 15% increase in salaries and pensions in the latest attempt to defuse popular anger amid protests demanding Pres. Mubarak's ouster. The regime appeared confident in its ability for the moment to ride out the unprecedented storm of unrest, and maintain its grip on power, at least until September elections. Mubarak's new cabinet held its first full meeting since an uprising started nearly two weeks ago.
(AP, 2/7/11)(Reuters, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Egypt Wael Ghonim (30), a Google Inc. marketing manager, was released from 12 days of detention and gave an emotionally charged television interview, sobbing at times over those who have been killed. He dubbed the protests "the revolution of the youth of the Internet." He was a key organizer of the online campaign that sparked the first protest on Jan 25.
(AP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, Fiji’s former President Ratu Josefa Iloilo (91) died. The tribal chief served as president from 2000 to 2009 and backed the 2006 military takeover of the country.
(AP, 2/17/11)
2011 Feb 7, France-based Alcatel-Lucent unveiled technology that reduces the filing cabinet size of a wireless base station to that of Rubik’s cube.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.70)
2011 Feb 7, In Haiti President Rene Preval’s chief of staff said Preval will stay in office for three more months as his country chooses a successor in a delayed election. An emergency law passed by members of Preval's former party in an expiring Senate allowed him to remain in office for up to three more months because his 2006 inauguration was delayed. The Haitian government issued a new passport to former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, enabling him to end his exile in South Africa and return to Haiti.
(AP, 2/7/11)(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, Iran unveiled four new domestically produced “research" satellites as part of a space program that's worrying other nations. Commander Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran is mass-producing a ballistic missile which can travel at more than three times the speed of sound and hit targets on the high seas.
(AP, 2/7/11)(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Iran and Turkey said they plan to triple two-way annual trade to $30 billion by 2015, ahead of a visit by Turkish President Abdullah Gul to the Islamic republic.
(AFP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Israel Jerusalem officials pushed forward plans to build new Jewish housing in an Arab neighborhood in the city's eastern sector, drawing swift condemnation from Palestinians who see it as encroaching on land they seek for a future state.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Japan's PM Naoto Kan led a large rally demanding the return of the southern Kuril islands held by Russia since the end of World War II and calling the recent visit there by Russia's president an outrage. Japan has designated Feb. 7 as "Northern Territories Day," saying that a treaty dating back to that day in 1855 supports its claim to the islands.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Mexico 3 people related to Josefina Reyes, a human-rights activist who was assassinated last year in the Juarez valley, were forced from their car southeast of Ciudad Juarez. Josefina had led protests against alleged abuses by Mexican soldiers in the valley.
(AP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, In the Philippines Pres. Benigno Aquino III signed a proclamation granting amnesty to rebel soldiers who participated in military uprisings in 2003 and 2006.
(SSFC, 2/13/11, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/2azzq9m)
2011 Feb 7, RIA News reported that a Russian man, Yevgeny Anikin (27), has pleaded guilty in court to stealing $10 million from former Royal Bank of Scotland division World Pay in 2008 by hacking into accounts. "I want to say that I repent and fully admit my guilt," Anikin said in his final comments to the court in Novosibirsk in Siberia, where he was charged with theft.
(Reuters, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, In Spain Basque separatists launched a new political party they say rejects violence by the armed group ETA, in an unprecedented step designed to move the troubled region toward peace.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2011 Feb 7, Sudan's Pres. Omar al-Bashir accepted a southern vote for independence in a referendum that is set to create Africa's newest state and open up a fresh period of uncertainty in the increasingly volatile region. The final results of the historic independence referendum showed that 98.83 percent had voted for secession.
(Reuters, 2/7/11)(AFP, 2/8/11)
2011 Feb 7, Tunisia’s Ministry of Interior suspended the Constitutional Democratic Rally (RCD), the former ruling party.
(Econ, 2/12/11, p.30)
2011 Feb 7, Zimbabweans chanting slogans from President Robert Mugabe's party trashed stalls owned by hawkers from elsewhere in Africa at a flea market in the capital, looting mobile phones, electrical goods and clothing.
(AP, 2/7/11)
2012 Feb 7, Rick Santorum won 3 victories in the race for the Republican presidential nomination by winning caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota and a primary in Missouri. Mitt Romney came in 3rd in Minnesota with 17% of the vote.
(SFC, 2/8/12, p.A6)(Econ, 2/11/12, p.32)
2012 Feb 7, The 9th Circuit Court in California struck down as unconstitutional the state's voter-passed ban on gay marriage, ruling 2-1 that it violates the rights of gay Californians.
(AP, 2/7/12)(SFC, 2/8/12, p.A1)
2012 Feb 7, The US Centers for Disease Control said smokers have twice the number of problems with their teeth than nonsmokers.
(SFC, 2/8/12, p.A6)
2012 Feb 7, Argentina's Pres. Cristina Fernandez accused Britain of "militarizing the South Atlantic" and said she would complain to the UN, as tension rises ahead of the 30th anniversary of the Falklands war.
(Reuters, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, Australia imposed new travel bans and financial sanctions on Syrian leaders on as it stepped up actions to force an end to violence against Syria's civilian population.
(Reuters, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Jailed Bahraini activists ended a hunger strike after eight days of refusing to eat in protest at a new crackdown on demonstrations. A week-long rally called for by the Shiite-led opposition was concluded.
(AFP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, Bolivian officials threatened to prosecute leaders of coca growers who used whips a day earlier to drive away 4 unarmed members of a government coca eradication team.
(AP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, Swollen rivers in Bulgaria and Greece burst their banks, leaving dozens of homes underwater. The Maritsa River to overflow its banks, leaving dozens of homes under water in the city of Svilengrad near the Greek border. In Greece the river Evros burst its banks near the country's northeastern border with Bulgaria.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, German police arrested two men on allegations they were spying on Syrian opposition groups in Germany.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Iran's parliament decided to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for questioning over a long list of accusations, including that he mismanaged the nation's economy.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Ministers from Iraq's Sunni-backed bloc ended their boycott of the Cabinet. Iraq executed 14 people, most of them Al-Qaeda members, bringing to at least 65 the number of executions so far this year.
(AP, 2/7/12)(AFP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, In Jamaica roughly 2,000 firearms were melted down in a blazing furnace as part of an effort designed to combat gun trafficking and corruption while reducing violent crime.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, The Maldives' first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed (44), resigned after a police mutiny described by his office as an attempted coup, capping weeks of political upheaval in the holiday paradise. Nasheed has faced three weeks of street protests stemming from the arrest of a senior judge. Vice President Mohamed Waheed, who had clashed with Nasheed over the chief justice's detention, was sworn in as the new head of state and he urged the population of 300,000 Sunni Muslims to remain calm.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Mexican navy personal detained suspect Francisco Alvarado Martagon as he attempted to drive past a military checkpoint near the city of Acayucan in a vehicle without license plates. He confessed to being a head lookout for the Zetas and mentioned two sites at local ranches that the Zetas allegedly used to dispose of bodies. The navy inspected the sites and over the next 24 hours found the buried, badly decomposed remains of 15 people.
(AP, 2/8/12)(AP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, The Mexican army found 73 Central American migrants in three houses near the US border and troops arrested 4 men suspected of planning to smuggle the people into Texas.
(AP, 2/9/12)
2012 Feb 7, In Nigeria explosions rocked an army barracks, a bridge and an air base in the northern city of Kaduna amid a wave of attacks blamed on Islamist group Boko Haram. One suicide bomber was reported killed.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Pakistani PM Yousuf Raza Gilani held talks with Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, on the 2nd day of an official visit expected to focus on Afghan peace efforts.
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Somali pirates seized the MV Free Goddess, a Liberian-flagged Greek-owned ship and its crew of 21 Filipinos. They were held hostage by pirates for eight months until a payment of $2.3 million was made in ransom.
(AP, 10/12/12)
2012 Feb 7, South Korean President Lee Myung-Bak arrived in Riyadh at the start of a two-day visit to the OPEC kingpin which comes as Seoul seeks to diversify its oil sources. Lee Myung-Bak held talks with Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi and the head of Saudi state oil giant Aramco, Khalid al-Faleh. Saudi Arabia pledged to ensure a stable supply of oil to South Korea.
(AFP, 2/7/12)(AFP, 2/8/12)
2012 Feb 7, Swiss materials giant Glencore and mining firm Xstrata announced a vast merger, creating a $90 billion (€69 billion) group and the world’s 4th largest mining company.
(AFP, 2/7/12)(Econ, 2/11/12, p.65)
2012 Feb 7, Syrian forces renewed their assault on the flashpoint city of Homs as Russia's foreign minister stressed the need for reform and dialogue during talks in Damascus with President Bashar Assad about the country's escalating violence. Activists reported that at least 15 people, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed in violence across the country. The six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council said it is pulling its ambassadors from Syria. France said it is recalling its ambassador to Syria for consultations. Other Western powers including Britain, the United States and Italy have called back their top envoys in the wake of new violence.
(AP, 2/7/12)
2012 Feb 7, Turkey's PM Erdogan announced a new initiative with regional players to halt the violence in Syria, saying the veto of a UN resolution had given President Bashar al-Assad a "license to kill."
(AFP, 2/7/12)
2013 Feb 7, The US IRS said that the government took action in January against 389 people suspected of committing tax fraud through identity theft. This included 109 arrests and 189 indictments.
(SFC, 2/8/13, p.C2)
2013 Feb 7, In southern California Margie Carranza and her 71-year-old mother, Emma Hernandez, were delivering papers around 5 a.m. when LAPD officers guarding the Torrance home of a target named in an online Dorner manifesto blasted at least 100 rounds at their pickup. Hernandez was shot in the back and Carranza had minor injuries. In April the city of Los Angeles reached a $4.2 million settlement with a mother and daughter.
(AP, 4/23/13)
2013 Feb 7, In eastern Afghanistan a NATO helicopter crashed in Kapisa province, but no crew members were seriously injured.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, An Australian government report said doping was widespread among professional and amateur athletes and demanded investigators name offenders to protect clean athletes' reputations.
(Reuters, 2/8/13)
2013 Feb 7, UK authorities said beef lasagna products recalled from British supermarkets by frozen food company Findus had tested positive for more than 60% horsemeat.
(SFC, 2/8/13, p.A2)
2013 Feb 7, In Ottowa, Canada, police said Marc Leduc (56) has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with the killing of two local sex workers. Pamela Kosmac, 39, was found murdered in 2008 near a bicycle path, while Leanne Lawson, 23, was found in a parking lot in a central part of the city. Leduc was already in custody facing 11 charges related to an alleged sexual assault of a 19-year-old Ottawa woman last November.
(AP, 2/8/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Colombia over 5,000 workers at the Cerrejon coal mine went on strike. Negotiations began on Feb 26.
(Econ, 3/2/13, p.38)
2013 Feb 7, Egypt's PM Hesham Kandil condemned religious edicts by hardline Muslim clerics calling for the killing of opposition leaders and said the government is considering legal action against them. Kandil faced uproar, derision and even lawsuits after he blamed health problems of babies in impoverished villages on nursing mothers who "out of ignorance" don't clean their breasts and talked of village women getting raped in the fields.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Egypt an Islamic summit urged Syrian opposition forces and members of Pres. Bashar Assad's regime, whose hands are not tainted by violence, to hold talks to try to resolve the nation's civil war.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, Ireland dissolved one of its "bad banks", the Irish Bank Resolution Corp (IBRC), in an emergency measure designed to pave the way for a new debt-repayment deal with the European Central Bank.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Mali French troops began to withdraw from Timbuktu after securing the fabled city as they ramped up their mission in Gao, searching for Islamic extremists who may be mixing among the local population.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, Pirates attacked the MV Esther C some 80 miles (130 km) off Nigeria's coast. On March 11 Carisbrooke Shipping Ltd. of the United Kingdom said 3 captured sailors have been freed.
(AP, 3/11/13)
2013 Feb 7, Syrian troops and rebels clashed again in the capital Damascus, a day after what activists described as the heaviest fighting in months in President Bashar Assad's seat of power.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Tunisia the Islamist Ennahda party, dominating the ruling coalition, rejected PM Hamadi Jebali’s decision to replace the government to try to appease critics, signaling that the political crisis brought on by the assassination of a prominent leftist politician is far from over.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, A Yemeni military official said an explosion at a military weapons depot in northern Yemen has killed 10 civilians and 5 soldiers.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2013 Feb 7, In Zambia a bus operated by the postal service, carrying passengers toward its capital Lusaka, smashed into a semi-truck and another car killing at least 53 people in one of the worst traffic crashes in the nation in recent history.
(AP, 2/7/13)
2014 Feb 7, Pres. Obama signed into law an agriculture spending bill that will spread benefits to farmers while trimming the food stamp program.
(SFC, 2/8/14, p.A5)
2014 Feb 7, In Argentina a truck driving on the wrong side of a highway crashed head on with passenger bus killing at least 18 people on National Hwy 7 in Mendoza province.
(SSFC, 2/9/14, p.A4)
2014 Feb 7, Protesters in Bosnia set fire to government buildings and fought with police as anger over unemployment and political inertia fuelled a 3rd day of the worst civil unrest in the country since its 1992-95 war.
(Reuters, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Cambodia a boy (8) died of H5N1 bird flu, the country’s first case this year. His sister (2) also died the same day.
(AP, 2/12/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Central African Republic thousands of Muslims fled for their lives from Bangui, with Christian crowds cheering as truckloads of Muslim families made their way out of town. One man who fell off a truck was subsequently killed and his body mutilated, highlighting the savagery faced by those Muslims who stayed behind. A convoy of some 500 cars, trucks and motorcycles was guarded by armed soldiers from Chad. The UN's refugee agency said nearly 9,000 people, mainly Muslims, have fled to Cameroon in just over a week to escape communal bloodshed in the CAR.
(AP, 2/7/14)(AFP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In China villagers of Baha in Yunnan province smashed the offices and equipment of a local metalwork factory and clashed with police after the boss refused to meet with them over smoke and pollution concerns. Xinhua News later said police were arresting people involved and had identified 16 suspects.
(SFC, 2/13/14, p.A6)
2014 Feb 7, In Egypt six policemen were wounded in double bombing attack in Cairo, hours before clashes between police and Islamist protesters in several cities killed 3 people. Ajnad Misr, Arabic for Egypt's Soldiers, claimed responsibility for the bomb attack. Late day airstrikes targeted hideouts of "terrorist, extremely dangerous takfiri" militants in the eastern border town of Sheikh Zuweyid. 16 militants were reported killed.
(AFP, 2/7/14)(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 7, German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed outrage over a leaked phone conversation in which Victoria Nuland, a top US diplomat, used the f-word regarding the European Union's handling of the crisis in Ukraine. An angry US State Department pointed the finger at Russia for allegedly bugging the diplomats' phones.
(AFP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, India acceded to Italy's request and said it won't invoke an anti-piracy law carrying the death penalty when it tries two Italian marines accused of killing two Indian fishermen in 2012.
(AP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Aid agencies working in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem expressed alarm at a spike in Israeli demolitions of Palestinian property coinciding with renewed US-backed peace negotiations.
(Reuters, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Mali’s Ministry of Defense said around 30 ethnic Tuaregs have been killed in the northern Gao region in local fighting with ethnic Peuls.
(Reuters, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Pakistan's fledgling peace talks with the Taliban suffered a fresh blow as a negotiator for the militants said he would take no further part until the agenda included the imposition of Islamic sharia law.
(AFP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In the northern Philippines a bus veered off a mountain road and fell into a ravine, killing at least 14 people.
(AP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Puerto Rico Pedro Rodriguez Colondres was indicted on accusations that he ran a fraud scheme obtaining at least half a million dollars in veteran's benefits under a false name from 1984 to 2011.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 7, Russia opened the Winter Olympics in Sochi. Police arrested four gay rights activists protesting in St. Petersburg.
(AP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In South Africa striking miners clashed with police after using rocks and burning tires to block a road leading to Anglo American Platinum's Union mine near Northam town. One protester was killed.
(AP, 2/8/14)
2014 Feb 7, Spain’s Cabinet approved a bill amending previous legislation that granted nationality by naturalization to Sephardic Jews who chose to apply for it. The reform will allow dual nationality, enabling people who can prove Sephardic ancestry to also retain their previous citizenships.
(AP, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Famished and traumatized Syrians were able to leave besieged parts of Homs for the first time in more than a year as part of a potentially ground breaking agreement between the Syrian government and the United Nations.
(Time.com, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, Turkish newspaper Today's Zaman said one of its journalists, Mahir Zeynalov (27) from Azerbaijan, has been ordered to leave the country for criticizing PM Tayyip Erdogan on Twitter.
(Reuters, 2/7/14)
2014 Feb 7, In central and southern Uruguay flooding caused by torrential rains forced the evacuation of thousands of people from their homes.
(AFP, 2/13/14)
2014 Feb 7, In Yemen Fresh clashes between Shiite rebels and tribesmen backed by Sunni Islamists erupted near Sanaa.
(AFP, 2/7/14)
2015 Feb 7, In Georgia, USA, Cedric Prather (33) shot and killed 4 people, including his ex-wife and several children, and wounded two others at a home in Douglasville before fatally shooting himself.
(SSFC, 2/8/15, p.A9)(SFC, 2/9/15, p.A6)
2015 Feb 7, Workers at refineries in Indiana and Ohio went on strike against two BP plants in an extension of strikes that began Feb 1.
(SSFC, 2/8/15, p.A9)
2015 Feb 7, Residents in Montana began finding dead horses. Somebody had shot up to two dozen horses and dumped their bodies in a hay field about a mile west of Lodge Grass on the Crow Indian Reservation.
(http://tinyurl.com/ors58py)(SFC, 2/17/15, p.A5)
2015 Feb 7, An alleged audiotape aired on a Brotherhood-allied TV station in which Egypt’s Pres. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and a top aide purportedly banter about how rich Persian Gulf Arabs are and add up the billions they intend to seek. Financial help, estimated at some $32 billion, has helped keep Egypt afloat after years of instability. On Feb 9 el-Sissi called leaders of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE, praising their wisdom and saying relations won’t be undermined by “nefarious attempts" to do so.
(http://tinyurl.com/lyprfja)(SFC, 2/11/15, p.A2)
2015 Feb 7, In Egypt 3 policemen were shot dead and two others injured when they came under fire while conducting a raid against a group of criminals near the southern city of Minya.
(AP, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, Germany's Angela Merkel warned that sending arms to help Ukraine fight pro-Russian separatists would not solve the crisis there, drawing a sharp rebuke from a leading US senator who accused Berlin of turning its back on an ally in distress.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, In Haiti at least 6,000 protesters marched through the capital to demand lower gas prices and the ouster of President Michel Martelly.
(AP, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, Air pollution in Delhi, India, was reported to be the worst in the world with levels of smaller particulates routinely 15 times above levels deemed safe by the World Health Organization (WHO).
(Econ, 2/7/15, p.38)
2015 Feb 7, In Iraq at least 40 people were killed in three bombings around Baghdad. Baghdad's decade-old nightly curfew was set to end at midnight.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)(AP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, Kenji Ekuan (85), Japanese industrial designer, died in Tokyo. His works ranged from a bullet train to the red-capped Kikkoman soy sauce dispenser as familiar as the classic Coca-Cola bottle. A former monk, Ekuan crafted a tabletop bottle for Kikkoman Corp. in 1961, winning international popularity both for the handy, flask-shaped dispenser.
(AP, 2/9/15)
2015 Feb 7, Jordan carried out a third straight day of air strikes on Islamic State targets.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, In Kenya a masked gunman shot and killed a Kenyan lawmaker on a street in Nairobi. George Muchai, was killed alongside his two bodyguards and a driver after they stopped to buy a newspaper.
(AP, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, Libya's eastern oil export port Hariga shut down due to a strike of security guards, closing the country's last functioning export port apart from two offshore fields. Only Brega port was still open, but it is used to supply the 120,000 bpd-Zawiya refinery with crude.
(Reuters, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, A Mexican federal judge threw out a five-year, money-laundering sentence for Sandra Avila Beltran, ordering the immediate release of the "Queen of the Pacific" for her alleged role as a liaison between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels. The judge ruled that Avila already had been tried for the same crime in Mexico and the United States.
(AP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, NATO and Russia failed to narrow their differences over the Ukraine crisis in talks but agreed they would keep talking to each other.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, US-led forces launched 15 air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and 11 in Syria over the last 24 hours. Nine targets in Syria centered around the border city of Kobani.
(Reuters, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, Nigeria’s election body chairman Attahiru Jega announced that the presidential and parliamentary polls would be postponed from February 14 to March 28, while gubernatorial and state assembly elections would be held on April 11.
(AFP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, In Puntland at least 2 people were killed when Somali militants al Shabaab attacked the house of a senior police official in the semi-autonomous region.
(Reuters, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, Slovaks voted in a nationwide a referendum that would bar gay marriages and adoptions, and allow parents to decide whether their children attend sex education classes. The votes won't count unless at least half of the eligible voters turn out. Voters overwhelmingly voted "yes" — 95, 92 and 90 percent, respectively — to the three questions. But turnout reached only 21.4 percent, far less than the 50 percent needed.
(AP, 2/7/15)(AP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, South African police discovered the frozen corpses of four newborn babies in two freezers at a house in the southern city of Mthatha.
(AFP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, Tunisian authorities said they have arrested 32 extremists over the last several days and thwarted an ambitious plot to attack civilian and military sites around the country, including the Interior Ministry. Some 3,000 Tunisians were estimated to have left for jihad, mainly with the Islamic State group, in Syria and Iraq.
(AP, 2/8/15)
2015 Feb 7, Ukraine President Petro Poroshenko brandished in front of world leaders several passports taken from Russian soldiers in what he said was proof of Moscow's "presence" in his country.
(AFP, 2/7/15)
2015 Feb 7, The United Arab Emirates said it has ordered a squadron of F-16 fighters to Jordan, which would participate in airstrikes on the Islamic State group after the UAE earlier suspended its involvement.
(AP, 2/7/15)
2016 Feb 7, The United States and its allies conducted ten strikes against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
(Reuters, 2/8/16)
2016 Feb 7, The SF Bay Area hosted the 50th edition of the Super Bowl. The Denver Broncos defeated the Carolina Panthers 24-10.
(AFP, 2/7/16)(http://tinyurl.com/j86x5ye)
2016 Feb 7, Afghan officials said a policeman was killed in a roadside bomb explosion in Puli Alim, the capital of Logar province. Eight others were wounded in the attack including head provincial judge, Haqiq Rahman, and the head of the city's appeals court, Abdul Rahman, as well as two other judges and four civilians.
(AP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Algeria's parliament adopted a package of constitutional reforms that authorities say will strengthen democracy, but opponents doubt it will bring real change. The new constitution limited presidents to two five-year terms.
(AFP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, In Israel a Sudanese migrant stabbed and wounded a soldier in an apparent act of solidarity with Palestinians and was shot dead.
(Reuters, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, In Jamaica gunfire left 3 people dead as Andrew Hollness, leader of the oppositon Jamaica Labour Party, spoke to supporters in Montego Bay.
(Econ, 2/20/16, p.30)
2016 Feb 7, In Libya unidentified aircraft attacked the city of Derna early today, killing at least four people including a woman and her child.
(Reuters, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Maldives police arrested a judge and a former prosecutor general for issuing an arrest warrant for the country's president without the police requesting one.
(AP, 2/8/16)
2016 Feb 7, North Korea launched a long-range rocket carrying what it called a satellite, but its neighbors and the United States denounced the launch as a missile test, conducted in defiance of UN sanctions and just weeks after a nuclear bomb test.
(Reuters, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Spanish police said they have arrested six suspected members of a jihadi cell linked to Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra militants during raids in the eastern provinces of Valencia and Alicante and in Spain's North African enclave of Ceuta.
(AP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Sri Lanka's ethnic Tamil leaders have asked the top UN human rights official to help determine the fate of more than 4,000 civilians reported missing in the country's long civil war amid the new government's assertion that most of them are probably dead.
(AP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, Aid trucks and ambulances entered Syria from Turkey to deliver food and supplies to tens of thousands of people fleeing an escalating government assault on Aleppo, as air strikes targeted villages on the road north to the Turkish border. 45 pro-regime fighters killed by gunfire and another 31 killed when landmines were detonated during clashes near Damascus.
(Reuters, 2/7/16)(AP, 2/13/16)
2016 Feb 7, A top official in the United Arab Emirates said that his country is prepared to send ground troops to Syria to fight Islamic State militants as part of an international coalition.
(AP, 2/7/16)
2016 Feb 7, In southern Yemen al-Qaida militants battled each other in the southern city of Zinjibar controlled by the group, in what appeared to be an internal power struggle that erupted after a senior militant was killed in a US drone strike. At least 7 militants were left dead and another nine wounded.
(AP, 2/8/16)
2017 Feb 7, VP Thomas Pence cast his vote to confirm charter school advocate Betsy DeVos as US education secretary breaking a 50-50 Senate tie.
(SFC, 2/8/17, p.A4)
2017 Feb 7, US federal prosecutors said Jermine Prosper (39), native of Guyana, was sentenced last week to five years in federal prison after pleading guilty to smuggling dozens of guns. He had legally purchased about 50 guns in the Atlanta and smuggled them in shipping barrels to Guyana, where they were sold on the streets.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, The US Army said that it will allow the $3.8 billion Dakota Access oil pipeline to cross under a Mississippi River reservoir in North Dakota.
(SFC, 2/8/17, p.A6)
2017 Feb 7, In northern California the Dept. of Water Resources discovered a large amount of debris coming out of the concrete-lined spillway of the Oroville Dam. Release of water was stopped and engineers found a massive crater in the spillway.
(SSFC, 2/19/17, p.A19)
2017 Feb 7, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D) was rebuked by the Senate for a reading a 1986 letter by Coretta Scott King that dated to Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions’ failed judicial nomination. The Senate was debating Sessions’ nomination for attorney general.
(SFC, 2/8/17, p.A5)
2017 Feb 7, Richard Hatch (b.1945), former star of the TV series “Battleship Galactica" (1978-1979), died in Los Angeles.
(SFC, 2/9/17, p.D3)
2017 Feb 7, In Afghanistan 22 people were killed in a bomb blast outside the Supreme Court in the center of Kabul, in what appeared to be the latest in a series of attacks on the judiciary. The Islamic State soon claimed responsibility.
(Reuters, 2/7/17)(Reuters, 2/8/17)
2017 Feb 7, Brazilian federal troops began to reestablish control over the state of Espirito Santo, where scores of people are reported to have been killed since the police went on strike. Police stopped patrolling on Feb 4 and criminals quickly ran amok.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Brexit Minister David Jones told the House of Commons that Parliament would get to approve the deal "before it is concluded" and before the European Parliament votes on it.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Colombia opens peace talks with its last active rebel group, the ELN, seeking to replicate its historic accord with the FARC guerrillas and deliver "complete peace" after 53 years of war.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, The European Union appointed 19 international judges to a special court that will prosecute ethnic Albanian rebels for crimes during and immediately after Kosovo's war for independence (1998-2000). The Kosovo Specialist Chambers judges come from 12 EU countries and the United States and Canada.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Former French president Nicolas Sarkozy was ordered to stand trial in an inquiry into alleged campaign finance fraud during his failed 2012 re-election bid.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Gangs of French youths torched cars and bins in a showdown with police in a north Paris suburb overnight in a grim reminder of the simmering tension that sparked weeks of more serious rioting in the area a decade ago. It was the third night of tension since four police officers were suspended pending an inquiry into accusations they had used excessive force on Feb 2 while arresting a 22-year-old man there, including shoving a baton into his anus.
(Reuters, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Jovenel Moise (48) was sworn as Haiti's 58th president, ending a protracted electoral crisis that had created a vacuum of power in the impoverished, disaster-prone Caribbean nation.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Ivory Coast special forces troops fired in the air in towns in the north and south of the country, weeks after soldiers and security forces mutinied over pay in the west African nation. They appeared to be angling for a deal with the government along the lines of one struck with mutinous soldiers in January that offered some of them large one-off lump sum payments.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, US superstar Madonna adopted twin girls in Malawi, raising to four the total number of children she has adopted from the southern African nation.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Nigerian troops saved the life of a young woman strapped with explosives and killed another suicide bomber, apparently primed by Boko Haram Islamic extremists to attack the northeastern city of Maiduguri.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Palestinian Pres. Mahmud Abbas called a new Israeli law legalizing dozens of Jewish outposts built on private Palestinian land an "attack against our people".
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Peru's attorney general announced he would seek the arrest of former President Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) on charges of laundering of assets and influence trafficking.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte berated 228 policemen accused of a variety of offenses, threatening on national television that he would send them to a southern island to fight militants dreaded for beheading captives.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Romania's President Klaus Iohannis told lawmakers the country is in a "fully-fledged" political crisis, after hundreds of thousands demonstrated against a government measure that would weaken the country's anti-corruption drive.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, In Syria air strikes on Al-Qaeda's former affiliate killed 26 people including 16 civilians in Idlib city. The headquarters of Fateh al-Sham Front and the surrounding neighborhood were battered by at least 10 strikes at dawn.
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Amnesty International accused Syria's government of hanging up to 13,000 people at a notorious prison over five years in a "policy of extermination", between 2011 and 2015. The damning report was titled "Human Slaughterhouse: Mass hanging and extermination at Saydnaya prison".
(AFP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Tanzania’s deputy minister of health said he has ordered the arrest of three men accused of promoting homosexuality.
(SFC, 2/8/17, p.A2)
2017 Feb 7, Thailand’s PM Prayuth Chan-ocha said that Somdej Phra Maha Muniwong (89) has been appointed by King Vajiralongkorn Bodindradebayavarangkun as the 20th supreme patriarch of the Buddhist order. His predecessor died in 2013 at age 100.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, Thailand's cabinet approved measures worth $1 billion to help farmers in its flood-hit south.
(Reuters, 2/7/17)
2017 Feb 7, A Thai court sentenced Australian Antonio Bagnato (28) to death for the murder of a countryman who was an alleged confederate in a drug smuggling gang. He was found guilty of killing former Hells Angels member Wayne Schneider in November 2015 after he and accomplices beat and kidnapped the victim from his luxury villa in the Pattaya resort area.
(AP, 2/7/17)
2018 Feb 7, The US Justice Department announced indictments against 36 people accused of being active in the Infraud Organization — founded in 2010 and operated under the slogan "In Fraud We Trust" — which was an anonymous online forum that the department described as a "one-stop shop for cybercriminals." The US indictment described Russian national Sergey Medvedev (31) as the group's co-founder.
(AP, 2/9/18)
2018 Feb 7, Rob Porter, Pres. Donald Trump's staff secretary, resigned following allegations of domestic abuse by two of his ex-wives.
(SFC, 2/8/18, p.A6)
2018 Feb 7, US House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi mounted a one-woman filibuster on the House floor demanding that Republicans allow an open debate on legislation to protect young immigrants and potentially derailing GOP efforts to pass a bipartisan deal on spending. She held the floor for more than eight hours.
(SFC, 2/8/18, p.A1)
2018 Feb 7, California officials sent a formal letter to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management demanding that the Pacific coast be removed from a program to vastly increase offshore oil drilling in the United States.
(AP, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, Los Angeles biotech entrepreneur Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong (65) agreed to buy the L.A. Times from Chicago-based Tronc Inc. for $500 million.
(SFC, 2/8/18, p.A7)
2018 Feb 7, Bermuda's UK-appointed governor, John Rankin, signed into law legislation replacing same-sex marriage with domestic partnerships passed in December by the Senate and House of Assembly. The decision reversed a 2017 court ruling legalizing gay marriage.
(AP, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, London-based Aon Securities said the World Bank has launched a $1.4 billion catastrophe bond covering Latin American earthquakes, the largest earthquake catastrophe bond on record. The multi-tranche bond would provide earthquake relief for Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Peru.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Brazil police and military forces said they have arrested 23 people in a series of raids over the last two days in violence-plagued parts of Rio de Janeiro two days before the city's famed Carnival celebrations.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Brazil's Health Ministry confirmed more than 350 cases of yellow fever as infections pick up steam in the state at the center of the last outbreak.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, British supermarket chain Tesco faced legal claims that it is paying women less than men for work of equal value, in a case that lawyers estimate could ultimately cost it as much as 4 billion pounds ($5.6 billion) in compensation payments.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Jon Venables, one of Britain's most notorious killers, admitted to having more than a thousand indecent images of children. In 1993 he murdered two-year-old James Bulger when he was only 10 himself.
(AFP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, A court in Cambodia allowed the release on bail of seven Westerners who were arrested last month for allegedly posting photos on social media of themselves engaged in sexually suggestive dancing. Three other people remained in detention.
(AP, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, Colombia's ELN rebel group said it would hold a three-day national blockade beginning over the weekend to protest the government's suspension of peace negotiations, and urged Colombians to avoid travel.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Egyptian officials opened the border with the Gaza Strip for the first time this year. Officials said the Rafah crossing point would operate for three days on a humanitarian basis.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, A feasibility study by Estonia and Finland said the world's longest undersea rail tunnel (103 kms) between the two countries could cost up to 20 billion euros ($24.7 billion) and be opened for traffic by 2040.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, European Union lawmakers rejected a proposal for pan-EU lists of candidates for seats in the European Parliament, but French President Emmanuel Macron said he would continue to press for such transnational lists.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, The European Parliament voted to dismiss one of its vice presidents, Ryszard Czarnecki of Poland, after he compared a rival Polish parliament member to a Nazi collaborator.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, France said the Syrian government likely used chlorine gas in its latest attacks on rebel-held areas.
(SFC, 2/8/18, p.A2)
2018 Feb 7, German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives made major concessions to the center-left Social Democrats (SPD) to agree a coalition deal that should give Europe's powerhouse a new government after four months of uncertainty. Merkel handed her Social Democrat (SPD) coalition partners control of the finance ministry, giving them license to spend a record budget surplus, and embracing their demands for European reform.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Israel thousands of African asylum seekers protested outside the Rwandan Embassy, calling on the African country not to cooperate with an Israeli plan to deport them.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Kenyan authorities overnight deported lawyer Miguna Miguna, charged with treason for attending the symbolic presidential inauguration of opposition leader Raila Odinga, prompting a rare rebuke from the Chief Justice who accused the government of defying court orders.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, A Kenyan court convicted a policeman of murdering a suspected thief in 2013 in a rare victory for the independent police watchdog that brought the case. The judge ruled that policeman Titus Musila should have arrested Kenneth Mwangi, whom he believed had stolen a mobile phone, instead of shooting him three times in the head.
(Reuters, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, Lebanon's Higher Defence Council gave orders to prevent Israel from building a border wall on Lebanese land, amid rising tensions over land and maritime boundaries.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Libya a military source said that Libyan commander Mahmoud al-Werfalli, sought by the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the alleged summary execution of dozens of people, has handed himself in to the military police in eastern Libya.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Libya an embassy official said about 20 people, including eight Pakistanis, feared to have drowned on a boat that sank off Libya on Feb. 2 were brought back to shore by smugglers and were being held at an unknown location.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Embattled Maldives Pres. Abdulla Yameen sent envoys to friendly nations such as China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to brief them on a political crisis in the Indian Ocean nation that spurred the imposition of a state of emergency.
(Reuters, 2/8/18)
2018 Feb 7, Mexican authorities arrested Jose Maria Guizar Valencia, the alleged leader of the zetas drug cartel. Guizar Valencia, a dual US-Mexican citizen, was arrested in Mexico City.
(SFC, 2/10/18, p.A4)
2018 Feb 7, A Pakistani court sentenced a man to death and convicted 30 others over the lynching of a 23-year-old university student who was falsely accused of blasphemy. Mohammad Mashal Khan was killed by a mob on his university campus in April 2016 over rumors, which later proved to be unfounded.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Police in Pakistan said they have arrested two teenagers suspected in the murder of a four-year-old girl last month.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In South Africa two workers were killed after a section of Sibanye-Stillwater's Kloof gold mine collapsed.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In South Korea a 229-member strong, all-female cheering section arrived from North Korea for the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said new airstrikes launched by Russian and Syrian government forces on a besieged rebel-held region east of Damascus killed 23 civilians including five children.
(AP, 2/7/18)(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, In Syria about 300 men working for a Kremlin-linked Russian private military firm were either killed or injured near Deir al-Zor as US-led coalition forces attacked forces aligned with Moscow's ally. Sources later said about 100 Russian military contractors were killed in the Deir al-Zor battle. Russia later acknowledged that at least five of its citizens may have been killed. The Kremlin-linked private military organization that recruited the fighters returned bodies more than seven weeks after the battle and with official documents bearing details that people who knew them say were incorrect.
(Reuters, 2/16/18)(SFC, 2/16/18, p.A2)(Reuters, 2/5/19)
2018 Feb 7, A Turkish court sentenced 64 military academy officers and trainees to life in prison for involvement in a failed military coup in 2016. Another 100 defendants were acquitted.
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, A senior Turkish official said that the country has fulfilled all 72 requirements set by the EU to secure visa-free travel for Turkish citizens to the 28-nation bloc.
(AP, 2/7/18)
2018 Feb 7, The United Nations top human rights official called on the Maldives government to immediately lift the state of emergency imposed two days ago, calling it to "an all-out assault on democracy".
(Reuters, 2/7/18)
2019 Feb 7, The United States sharply rebuked Germany for deporting Adem Yilmaz, a wanted Islamic militant, to Turkey instead of extraditing him to New York to stand trial on terror-related charges. He has been charged by a US federal grand jury with conspiring to carry out a March 3, 2008, suicide bombing in Afghanistan, which left two US soldiers dead and 11 others injured.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, The US Supreme Court voted 5-4 to stop Louisiana from requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.
(SFC, 2/8/19, p.A4)
2019 Feb 7, Former Michigan US Rep. John Dingell (b.1926), died at his home in Dearborn. Dingell had set a record for serving 59 years in the US House before retiring in 2014.
(SFC, 2/8/19, p.A7)
2019 Feb 7, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said he was the target of extortion and blackmail by American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer. The tabloid had published a story of his extramarital affair last month.
(SFC, 2/8/19, p.A6)
2019 Feb 7, The government of Bosnia's autonomous Serb Republic set up panels to re-examine the number of victims in Srebrenica and Sarajevo during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, a move Western countries viewed as a push to revise history.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Brazil torrential downpours and strong winds killed at least five people and left a trail of destruction in Rio de Janeiro.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, British writer Rosamunde Pilcher (94) died overnight in Scotland. She wrote more than 12 novels including the family saga "The Shell Seekers" (1987), which sold millions of copies around the world.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Veteran British actor Albert Finney (b.1936) died in London after a short illness. His films included "Two for the Road" (1967), "Wolfen" (1981), "Shoot the Moon" (1982) and "Erin Brockovich" (2000). His four best actor Academy Award nominations were for "Tom Jones" (1963), as Poirot in "Murder on the Orient Express" (1974), "The Dresser" (1983) and "Under the Volcano" (1984). Finney also appeared and sang in "Scrooge" (1970) and "Annie" (1982), in which he played tycoon Oliver "Daddy" Warbucks.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, Chadian President Idriss Deby said a column of rebels which had sought to cross into the country from Libya had been "destroyed" in a series of strikes carried out by French warplanes. The French military has said Mirage 2000 jets struck an armed convoy on three days this week, destroying about 20 of roughly 50 pickup trucks.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Police in Chile arrested retired Gen. Juan Emilio Cheyre, a former army chief, on charges of torturing 24 people in 1973, shortly after the coup that brought dictator Augusto Pinochet to power.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Congo's new President Felix Tshisekedi landed in Brazzaville, the capital of neighboring Republic of the Congo, to start his first international trip since being elected president in late January.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Costa Rica a second woman accused former president and Nobel Peace laureate Oscar Arias (78) of sexual assault in 2015. The former Miss Costa Rica said he "grabbed" her head and pulled her close to him before "he touched my breasts over my clothes and then gave me a kiss against my will".
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, A Danish court sentenced a 36-year-old woman to four years in jail for having drained 500 milliliters (more than a pint) of blood from her young son as often as once a week over a five-year period. A psychiatric report said she suffers from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a mental condition where caregivers make a child ill in order to attract attention to themselves.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Egypt executed three Muslim Brotherhood members sentenced to death following torture and beatings to extract confessions. The three were convicted last year for the 2014 killing of a judge's son in the Nile Delta town of Mansoura.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, France said its defense cooperation with Cameroon was continuing a day after the United States said it was halting some military assistance to the West African country over allegations of human rights violations by its security forces.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, France's foreign ministry recalled its ambassador to Rome for consultations over a series of comments from Italy's deputy prime ministers, Luigi Di Maio and Matteo Salvini. Salvini and De Maio have angered Macron in particular by publicly supporting the "yellow vest" protesters who have taken to the streets to denounce high living costs and a perceived indifference by the government to rural and small-town France.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, German authorities ruled that Facebook should not be allowed to use customer data from other apps and websites to help target advertisements shown on their Facebook pages without their explicit consent, saying it was exploiting its dominant position in social media. Facebook said it rejected the decision, and would appeal within the one-month frame before it becomes final.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Reporters Without Borders said that Iranian authorities arrested, jailed and sometimes executed 1.7 million people around the capital Tehran alone in the first 30 years after the 1979 Islamic revolution. At least 860 journalists were arrested, imprisoned or executed over the same period.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Israel's prestigious $1 million Dan David Prize was awarded to Canadian author Michael Ignatieff and Reporters Without Borders for their work in promoting democracy.
(SFC, 2/8/19, p.A2)
2019 Feb 7, The body of Israeli teenager Ori Ansbacher (19) was found in the woods near Jerusalem with stabbing wounds. Police soon arrested Arafat Erfaiyeh (29), a Palestinian suspect in the killing.
(AP, 2/9/19)(SSFC, 2/10/19, p.A6)(AP, 2/11/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Jordan a former customs chief, an ex-minister and a top businessman were among 29 suspects charged with corruption in a case involving fake cigarettes. Media reports have said the "tobacco case" had cost Jordan's treasury hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Kosovo hundreds of protesters called on authorities to jail a police officer accused of sexually abusing a girl (16).
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Lebanon's new government approved a policy statement committing to reforms that are seen as critical to putting the heavily indebted state's finances on a sustainable path.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Lebanon's parliament speaker said an Israeli move to license energy exploration near a disputed maritime boundary threatened to drain Lebanese oil wealth before its own drilling had started.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Myanmar police arrested 36 people outside the headquarters of Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy party in the Kayah state capital of Loikaw after police broke up the latest protest against a statue of Aung San. Another 10 people were arrested the following day.
(Reuters, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, In the Netherlands thousands of students skipped classes to march for action on climate change, following the example of young demonstrators in Belgium and other countries for the first time.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Portugal's Health Minister Marta Temido announced that the government has decided to order a so-called civil requisition, whereby workers in essential services are required by law to report for duty in "exceptionally serious" circumstances.
(AP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, The council of Scotland's capital Edinburgh said it will become the first British city to introduce a tourist tax to try to better manage the impact of swelling visitor numbers and booming hotel occupancy. The idea needs a final sign-off by Scotland's devolved parliament.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Sierra Leone's Pres. Julius Maada Bio declared a national emergency over rape and sexual violence, saying perpetrators are getting younger and their acts more violent.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Somalia US targeted airstrikes against suspected extremists killed 4 more fighters in the vicinity of Bariire, Lower Shabelle region.
(AP, 2/8/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Sudan hundreds of protesters rallied in Khartoum in support of fellow demonstrators detained in the weeks of rallies against President Omar al-Bashir's iron-fisted rule.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Syria a Kurdish-led force arrested 63 suspected militants in the city of Raqa during an operation against jihadist sleeper cells.
(AFP, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, Ugandan police arrested a team of BBC journalists overnight for illegal possession of prescription drugs. The country's government spokesman said the reporters had been helping to expose corruption, and demanded their immediate release.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Uruguay European and Latin American leaders gathered in Montevideo to discuss a plan to solve the deepening crisis in Venezuela, while urging the global community to back away from direct intervention.
(Reuters, 2/7/19)
2019 Feb 7, In Uzbekistan businessman Halemubieke Xiaheman (41) an ethnic Kazakh citizen of China's Xinjiang province, said in a video apparently recorded inside Tashkent airport building that he had been harassed by Chinese security officials to a point where his Russian and Kazakh clients were scared to work with him.
(Reuters, 2/8/19)
2020 Feb 7, Pres. Donald Trump ousted Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the decorated soldier and national security aide who played a central role in the Democrats' impeachment case. Next came word that Gordon Sondland, Trump's ambassador to the European Union, also was out.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Former Secretary of the Navy Richard V. Spencer endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, making him the first high-level former Trump administration official to back a Democratic hopeful in the 2020 election.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, More than 300,000 homes and businesses were without power early today as a weather system blamed for five deaths in the South moved into the northeastern United States. Authorities confirmed five storm-related fatalities, in Alabama, South Carolina, North Carolina and Tennessee.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, A judge in Boston ordered Douglas Hodge (62) of Laguna Beach to spend nine months in federal prison for paying bribes to get four of his children into the Univ. of Southern California and Georgetown as fake athletic recruits. Hodge onece served as the head of Pimco, a bond management company.
(SFC, 2/8/20, p.A6)
2020 Feb 7, Vance Pearson, a former senior official of the United Auto Workers based in St. Louis, pleaded guilty to a corruption scheme that used union cash for vacation villas, golf, cigars and booze.
(SFC, 2/10/20, p.A5)
2020 Feb 7, In New Hampshire a Democratic presidential debate was held ahead or the upcoming primary in the state. Joe Biden had a strong moment during the debate when he called on the audience to “stand and give Col. Vindman a show of how much we supported him," adding that Trump “should be pinning a medal on Vindman and not on Rush Limbaugh".
(AP, 2/8/20)(Yahoo News, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, It was reported that the US Air Force had 84 suicides among active-duty members last year, up from 60 the year before.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the Esperanza base on the northern tip of the Antarctic peninsula has recorded a temperature of 18.3 degrees Celsius (64.94 degrees Fahrenheit), the highest on record.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Heavy rains lashed parts of the wildfire and drought-stricken Australian east coast, bringing some flooding in Sydney and relief to firefighters still dealing with dozens of blazes in New South Wales. There were still 42 fires burning in the state, with 17 of those not contained.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Government data showed that aggressive deforestation is starting earlier this year in Brazil's Amazon rainforest, with destruction doubling in January compared with a year ago.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, It was reported that Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has signed into law quarantine rules for Brazilians who will be brought back from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of a coronavirus outbreak.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Shamima Begum (20), a UK woman who as a teenager ran away to join the Islamic State group in 2015, lost a legal challenge Friday aimed at restoring her citizenship, which was revoked on national security grounds.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, China confirmed 31,161 cases and 636 deaths on the mainland. Dr. Li Wenliang (34) died overnight due to the coronavirus at Wuhan Central Hospital. Police in December had reprimanded eight doctors including ophthalmologist Li for warning friends on social media about the emerging threat.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Independent scientists questioned research that suggested that the outbreak of coronavirus disease spreading from China might have passed from bats to humans through the illegal traffic of pangolins. South China Agricultural University had led the research.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Egypt freed pro-democracy activist Ramy Sayed (31). He had spent over four years in prison and rose to local prominence as one of the faces of the country's 2011 uprising.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Egyptian police arrested Patrick George Zaki (27), an activist, researcher and vocal critic of President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's government.
(AP, 2/9/20)
2020 Feb 7, French President Emmanuel Macron called for European nations to play a more direct role in halting a new nuclear arms race, saying they "cannot remain spectators" against a threat to the continent's collective security.
(AFP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, French air strikes killed 20 militants in the Sahel region where Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso meet. Earlier in the week commando operations killed about ten others in the border area.
(SSFC, 2/9/20, p.A3)
2020 Feb 7, Iraq's Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani called for security forces to protect anti-government protesters in a sermon, after weeks of violence in Baghdad and southern Iraq, and amid seething tensions between demonstrators and followers of cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, The director of Israeli crossings informed all exporters and all relevant parties that all Palestinian agriculture products would be banned from export to world markets through the Jordanian crossing starting Feb. 9.
(Reuters, 2/8/20)
2020 Feb 7, The head of Ivory Coast's cotton and cashew council said production of cashews fell 17% to 634,641 tons in 2019 after as much as 200,000 tons were smuggled out of the country.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, In southern Kazakhstan ethnic clashes between ethnic Kazakhs and Dungans, a minority group with Chinese roots, left eight people dead. The total number of casualties soon rose to 10. Dozens of people were detained as police established their roles in the incident.
(AP, 2/9/20)
2020 Feb 7, Norway, western Europe's largest oil and gas producer, announced it was increasing its ambition to cut carbon emissions and would put an implementation plan before parliament later this year.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, President Vladimir Putin ordered payments to be made to Russian World War II veterans in Russia and the Baltic States as well as to those who were held in Nazi concentration camps. The one-time payments of 50,000 rubles to 75,000 rubles ($790-$1,200) will also go to the widows or widowers of veterans in Russia as well as Russian citizens in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Airat Khairullin, a member of the lower house of the Russian parliament, was killed in a helicopter crash in Tatarstan, about 850 km (500 miles) east of Moscow. Two survivors suffered serious injuries.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, In South Africa Tazne van Wyk (7) went missing. Her body was found two weeks later after her suspected murderer led police to the storm drain where he said he had disposed of it. The suspect, a violent multiple offender had been released on parole. He was in prison for the kidnapping and murder of another child.
(BBC, 3/22/20)
2020 Feb 7, Sudan reached a settlement with families of the victims of the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen, as part of its campaign to persuade the US to remove its designation as a state sponsor of terrorism. The settlement for about $30 million would be split between the families of the 17 sailors killed.
(Bloomberg, 2/13/20)
2020 Feb 7, Tunisia fired Moncef Baati, its ambassador to the UN, accusing him of failing to consult the foreign ministry on key issues that diplomatic sources said included Washington's controversial Middle East peace plan.
(AFP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, Several Turkish armored vehicles and tanks entered rebel-controlled northwestern Syria, the latest reinforcements sent in by Ankara amid a Syrian government offensive that this week brought the two countries' troops into a rare direct confrontation.
(AP, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, The UN said people are fleeing a surge of attacks in northern Mozambique where witnesses have described beheadings, mass kidnappings and villages burned to the ground.
(Reuters, 2/7/20)
2020 Feb 7, A UN poverty expert said Spain is depriving its poor of basic rights, even as its businesses recover from the economic crisis.
(AP, 2/7/20)
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