Mugabe approves controversial changes to Zimbabwe constitution News
Mugabe approves controversial changes to Zimbabwe constitution

[JURIST] Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe [Wikipedia backgrounder] has approved amendments to the country's constitution [JURIST report; constitution text] that allow the government to nationalize white-owned farms and impose travel bans on those deemed anti-government. Critics say the land-law changes will prevent white farmers from being able to challenge any property seizure of their land while the travel bans function as a tool to suppress opposition to the President's rule. Mugabe has been in power for 25 years and Zimbabwe's economic crisis has been blamed on his reign. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change [Contemporary Africa Database profile] has called the amendments "a serious assault on citizens' basic rights and freedoms." Reuters 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.