2008 Review: February

RIA Novosti looks back at the main events of the outgoing year; below the month-by-month review of 2008 continues, with February:

February 1

* Russia transfers $118.4 million to the International Bank for Economic Cooperation (IBEC), settling its final Soviet-era debt to international organizations

* Over 30 Russian strategic bombers and long-range interceptors start joint exercises with a naval task group in the Atlantic and Arctic

* Warsaw and Washington agree in principle on the deployment of a U.S. missile defense base on Polish territory

February 2

* A one-month-long media campaign for Russia's presidential election is launched ahead of the March 2 poll

* Russia and the United States sign a trade deal allowing Russia to boost enriched uranium exports to the U.S.

February 4

* Serbia's pro-Western incumbent Boris Tadic is narrowly re-elected as president in a vote seen as a key test of the country's relations with Europe

February 6

* A Moscow court halts the trial of the terminally-ill Yukos ex-vice president, Vasily Aleksanyan, and sent him for medical treatment

* Italian President Giorgio Napolitano dissolves parliament, paving the way for snap elections, in an attempt to end a political crisis that has paralyzed the legislature

February 11

* Moscow cancels $12 billion of Iraq's debt, or 93% of the total sum owed by the Middle East state

February 12

* Moscow and Kiev reach an agreement on natural gas supplies as Ukraine pledges to start repaying its $1.5 billion gas debt

February 13

* Georgian opposition leader Badri Patarkatsishvili, accused by Georgian authorities of attempting to instigate a coup during protests in the South Caucasus country last year, dies in London

February 14

* Russia's outgoing President Vladimir Putin gives his seventh and last annual news conference

February 17

* Kosovo unilaterally declares independence

February 19

* Fidel Castro announces he will step down as Cuba's president after almost 50 years in power 

February 20

* Armenian Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan is announced the winner of the country's presidential elections

February 21

* Gazprom, Total and StatoilHydro sign a deal on a joint venture to develop the Shtokman gas field in the Barents Sea

February 22

* Turkey launches a large-scale ground operation targeting Kurdish insurgents in the north of Iraq

* Norway's leading ship-owner Odfjell cancels its contract with Russia's Sevmash shipyard for the construction of 12 tankers

* Libya's National Oil Corporation (NOC) signs an exploration and production sharing agreement on an oil and gas field with Russian energy giant Gasprom

* A passenger aircraft crashes in a mountainous jungle area in Venezuela 30 minutes after takeoff, killing all 46 people on board

February 29

* The car manufacturing giant Renault-Nissan buys a blocking stake of 25% plus one share in Russia's largest carmaker AvtoVAZ for $1 billion