Oil-for-food investigators uncover "gross mismanagement" News
Oil-for-food investigators uncover "gross mismanagement"

[JURIST] Iraq's deputy UN ambassador Fesial al-Istrabadi said Friday that independent investigators have found evidence of "gross mismanagement" and potential corruption in the UN Oil-for-Food program [JURIST news archive] related to currency exchange rates with the fluctuating dinar. Independent Inquiry Committee [official website] investigators, led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker [Wikipedia profile], have been looking into questionable expenditures by the UN Compensation Commission [official website] and whether the Iraqi government should be paid for overcharges by UN agencies. A spokesperson for the UN said the group would have no comment on the mismanagement allegations until the final report is released as expected in September. AP 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.