Unix Timestamp: 1234051200
Sunday, February 8. 2009, 12:00:00 AM UTC

Bushfires in Victoria, Australia, have killed at least 108 people and destroyed at least 750 homes. //www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article5685378.ece ("The Times")

The Taliban releases a video of Polish geologist Piotr Stańczak, whom they had abducted a few months earlier, being beheaded. It is the first killing of a Western hostage in Pakistan since American journalist Daniel Pearl was executed in 2002.