Today is the 283rd day of 2023. There are 82 days left in the year.

TODAY’S HIGHLIGHTS

1995: Israel releases about 300 Palestinian prisoners and hands a military government office to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in a fitful start to the West Bank autonomy agreement.

1973: Vice-President Spiro T Agnew resigns from office and pleads no contest to the charge of failing to report US$29,500 in income while he was governor of Maryland.

OTHER EVENTS

1899: African American inventor Issac R Johnson patents the bicycle frame.

1970: Fiji gains independence after nearly a century of British rule.

1975: The murder of journalist Vladimir Herzog in an army jail in Brazil causes indignation in the military high command and starts a gradual dismantling of the dictatorship.

1981: An estimated 250,000 people march in Bonn, capital of West Germany, to protest NATO’s announced plans to deploy nuclear weapons in Western Europe.

1988: Suspected Tamil militants attack a village in northern Sri Lanka, killing at least 47 people as they sleep.

1990: The US freezes US$564 million in economic and military aid to Pakistan because of its suspected continued development of nuclear weapons.

1991: German political leaders agree to establish large refugee camps to protect people seeking asylum — amid a continuing wave of violence led by neo-Nazi skinhead youth against foreigners in Germany.

1992: A court in Karachi, Pakistan, acquits Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, on charges of masterminding the murder of 29 rival political supporters.

1994: Haitian leader Lieutenant General Raoul Cedras resigns, paving the way for the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

1996: Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers search house to house for anyone suspected of collaborating with the former regime, unleashing a wave of fear among ethnic minorities.

1998: Rebels use a missile to shoot down a jetliner carrying 40 civilians in eastern Congo, claiming it was ferrying government troops to the besieged town of Kindu.

2000: Sirimavo Bandaranaike, who 40 years earlier became the world’s first female prime minister, dies of a heart attack in Colombo, Sri Lanka, at the age of 84.

2001: In order to avoid a no-confidence vote, Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga dissolves the Government and calls for new elections in December. Americans George A Akerlof, A Michael Spence, and Joseph E Stiglitz win the Nobel Prize in Economics for research into how the control of information influences everything from used car sales to the rise and collapse of high-tech stocks.

2002: Legislative assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir State confirm the National Conference party failed to win a majority, after ruling the Himalayan region for most of the prior 50 years.

2003: US President Bush announces measures to increase US pressure on the Government of Cuban President Fidel Castro, including a crackdown on US tourists who visit Cuba illegally and the creation of a high-level task force to plan for a post-Castro Cuba.

2004: A historic Afghan presidential election is blemished when all 15 candidates opposing US-backed interim President Hamid Karzai withdraw, charging the Government and the United Nations with fraud and incompetence.

2005: General Augusto Pinochet’s wife and younger son are arrested in Chile’s capital and charged as accomplices in a tax evasion case linked to an investigation into the former dictator’s multimillion-dollar fortune overseas.

2006: Two bombs explode in insurgency-torn southern Philippines, killing six people and wounding more than 30, as officials heighten security amid warnings that al-Qaeda-linked terrorists are planning further attacks.

2009: Legendary trumpeter and bandleader, Jamaican Cecil “Sonny” Bradshaw dies this day. Turkey and Armenia sign a landmark agreement to establish diplomatic relations and open their sealed border after a century of enmity. Militants in fatigues shoot their way into the Pakistani army headquarters compound in Rawalpindi, killing six people and taking several others hostage.

2011: Egypt’s ruling military condemns a surge in deadly violence as an attempt to undermine the State, and warns it will act to safeguard the peace following a night of clashes that draws in Christians, Muslims and security forces.

2015: A bombing at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey kills at least 95 and injures 200.

2019: A total 3,500 women are the first to be allowed to attend a football match in Iran for a World Cup qualifier in Tehran, since the Islamic revolution.

2020: Italian teenage computer genius Carlo Acutis, who died of leukemia at 15, is beatified by the Catholic Church in Assisi, Italy.

2021: Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen, in a defiant speech on Taiwanese National Day, says her country won’t bow to Chinese pressure, after Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed, the day before, to “fulfil reunification”.

TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

Giuseppe Verdi, Italian composer (1813-1901); Fridtjof Nansen, Norwegian explorer (1861-1930); Ivo Andric, Yugoslav writer and Nobel laureate (1892-1975); Alberto Giacometti, Swiss artist (1901-1966); Thelonious Monk, US jazz musician (1917-1982); Nora Roberts (aka J D Robb), US romance/mystery author (1950- )

— AP/Jamaica Observer