Egyptian voters back election changes in constitutional referendum News
Egyptian voters back election changes in constitutional referendum

[JURIST] In what Interior Minister Habib al-Adli claimed was the largest turnout ever in a registered referendum, 83% of Egyptian voters have backed a change in election law [JURIST report] that allows multi-candidate presidential elections. The high turnout was marred however by attacks from Egyptian police and demonstrators [JURIST report] against anti-referendum activists, attacks which President Bush Thursday condemned as counter to the notion of free elections. The pro-reform group Kifaya [Wikipedia entry], opposed to the measure and to President Hosni Mubarak's National Democratic Party [official website], claimed that NDP supporters had attacked marchers and women with police nonintervention. Mubarak, in power since 1981, is expected to announce soon that he will run for a fifth term. AFP has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

UN General Assembly approves Palestine partition plan

The UN General Assembly approved UN Resolution Resolution 181 (II) on November 29, 1947, recommending that the British Mandate for Palestine be split into a Jewish state, an Arab state, and an international zone for Jerusalem. The vote in the assembly was 33 for to 13 against, with 10 abstentions. The resolution sparked a war between Palestinian Arabs and Jews in 1947 and a wider war after Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon invaded the new State of Israel in 1948. Read Resolution 181 (II).

UN divided Palestine between Arabs and Jews

On November 29, 1947, the UN General Assembly voted to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab territories, leading to the establishment of a Jewish state the following year. Read UN General Assembly Resolution 181.

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara resigns during Vietnam Conflict

On November 29, 1967, Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara announced that he was resigning from his office to accept an appointment as head of the World Bank. The announcement came as the Vietnam Conflict was becoming increasingly unpopular in the United States and abroad.