Some 16 February events

On 16 February

2003 Presidential elections in the Greek two-thirds of Cyprus. Conservative Tassos Papadopoulos [07 Jan 1934~] gets 51.5% of the vote, defeating incumbent Glafcos Clerides [24 Apr 1919~] with 38.8%, and eight other candidates. Clerides is seen as too accomodating towards Turkish Cypriots on the way to an accord with them prerequisite to Cyprus being admitted to the European Union, it was hoped that on 16 April 2003; however, after this election, this is delayed until May 2004. — (060213)

2002 Biologists from The Peregrine Fund release seven California Condors on top of the 300-meter Vermilion Cliffs, north of the Grand Canyon, in Arizona.

2001 Nortel Networks stock drops 33% Shares of Nortel Networks (NT) fall nearly 33% on the NYSE, from $29.75 to $20.00, after the Canadian telecom equipment maker cut its 2001 profit forecast by two-thirds and said it now plans to cut 10'000 in 2001. 121 million of the 3 billion shares of NT are traded this day.
The Toronto Stock Exchange index, where NT has much influence, falls 574.10 (6.4%) to 8393.20. There 24 million shares of NT are traded, falling also 33% to ca$31.00 from ca$46.15 (the Canadian dollar is worth 65 US cents this day) (the DJIA falls 0.84%, the S&P500 1.9%, and the NASDAQ 5%).
After insisting for months that its robust forecasts could withstand the US economic slide, Nortel issued the profit warning after the stock market closed the previous day. The news threatened to douse the flickers of confidence investors have shown for technology shares this week. Those stocks have been hammered over the past month amid similar announcements from other major technology companies such as Cisco Systems saying business conditions are turning even weaker than expected in the United States.
Nortel, the world's top supplier of optical gear for telephone and Internet data networks, also said on 15 February that it will eliminate 6000 more positions in 2001 on top of the 4000 job cuts announced in January. 6000 of those 10'000 positions already have been eliminated.
Nortel is one of several major technology companies cutting jobs to cut costs in a weakening economy. Also on on 15 February, Dell Computer announced plans to cut 1700 jobs. Other planned job cuts announced in recent weeks include 16'000 at Lucent Technologies and 9370 at Motorola, both major rivals to Nortel.
The rapid economic slowdown has prompted the Federal Reserve to lower its lending rates twice since the start of 2001.
Nortel now expects just 15% growth in sales and a 10% gain in operating profits for the year, down from management's previously steadfast forecasts that those measures would improve 30 percent or better.

2001 La aviación estadounidense bombardea Bagdad, la capital iraquí.

2000 Norway becomes the 7th country (preceded by Senegal, Trinidad and Tobago, Italy, Fiji, and Ghana) to ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (which has not been ratified nor even signed by the US)

2000 Lucy Edwards, a former Bank of New York executive, and her husband, Peter Berlin, pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to laundering billions of dollars from Russian bankers in one of the biggest such crimes in US history.