Talabani insists no civil war in Iraq if draft constitution rejected News
Talabani insists no civil war in Iraq if draft constitution rejected

[JURIST] Iraqi President Jalal Talabani [BBC profile], now on a visit to the United States, insisted Friday at a Washington press conference that if the draft Iraqi constitution [JURIST news archive] is not adopted in a referendum next month there would be no civil war in Iraq. Talabani's comments came on the same day that lawmakers in Iraq said that an amended version of the draft Iraqi constitution was ready for final approval [JURIST report]. Talabani said that if the referendum failed, there would simply be a new national assembly elected to draft another constitution, but he called critics who opposed the charter's proposed federation "narrow-minded Arab nationalists who don't understand the spirit of the new era." Listen to complete recorded audio of the press conference from the Voice of America or read the full transcript [PDF]. VOA 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.