Blair hoping to salvage key elements of EU constitution News
Blair hoping to salvage key elements of EU constitution

[JURIST] British Prime Minister Tony Blair [official website] said in an interview [FT report] Tuesday with the Financial Times that Britain will attempt to salvage some key components from the nearly-defunct EU Constitution. UK Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Jack Straw [official profile] stated meanwhile that provisions on the voting power of member nations and role of national parliaments could be implemented without a formal constitutional agreement. The European Constitution was to have been subject to a British referendum, but this was indefinitely postponed Monday [JURIST report] after the document's rejection by both France [JURIST report] and the Netherlands [JURIST report]. The Constitution's fate will be decided on June 16 and 17 when EU leaders are expected to meet in Brussels to discuss the charter in crisis. Britain is the next country to take over the rotating presidency of the EU this upcoming July. 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.