September 12, 2003
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- Israeli-Palestinian conflict: Arab and Non-Aligned nations call on the United Nations Security Council to stop Israel carrying out its threat to expel the head of the Palestinian Authority, Yasser Arafat, from the West Bank. Elsewhere the European Union and Russia describe the Israeli proposal as a 'terrible mistake'. UN General Secretary Kofi Annan calls the Israel's proposed action "dangerous" and "unwise". The Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, who takes over as President of the European Council in January, tells journalists after a summit meeting with French President Jacques Chirac in Paris that he is "shocked" by the Israeli plan and said his government is "totally opposed" to the Israeli plan. The United States Ambassador to Israel meets the Israeli Defence Minister to outline American hostility to the plan. [1] [2] [3]
- Zimbabwe's only opposition newspaper, the Daily News ceases publication following a court order that it breached the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act introduced by President Robert Mugabe in 2002. The closure follows an armed raid on the paper's offices by police. One reporter told Reuters that the action was an "unprecedented attack on press freedom". [4]
- Libya : The United Nations today ends 15-year old sanctions against Libya. The sanctions were imposed following the Lockerbie disaster. The sanctions are lifted following payment by Libya (following an admission of responsibility) of $2.7 billion to the families of those who died in the bombing.
- Ontario general election, 2003: A press release from Premier Ernie Eves's Tory camp includes, apparently accidentally, a line referring to Liberal leader Dalton McGuinty as an "evil reptilian kitten-eater from another planet". [5]
- Johnny Cash died at the age of 71 due to complications from diabetes, which resulted in respiratory failure, while hospitalized at Baptist Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. He was interred next to his wife in Hendersonville Memory Gardens near his home in Hendersonville, Tennessee.
