Romania finds no local evidence of secret CIA prisons, flights News
Romania finds no local evidence of secret CIA prisons, flights

[JURIST] Romania has concluded an investigation into alleged secret CIA prisons [COE materials] located near Romanian airports in Europe's "spider's web" [COE graphic] of CIA rendition flights [JURIST news archive], finding no evidence that the country hosted secret prisons or cooperated in rendition flights. A committee of the Romanian Senate [official website] undertook the investigation in response to allegations leveled in a Council of Europe [official website] draft report [PDF text; JURIST report] released earlier this month by Swiss legislator Dick Marty accusing 14 European nations of cooperating with alleged CIA rendition flights on some level, and specifically accusing Romania and Poland of hosting secret prisons near airports for the CIA to use for detainee torture. Romanian Senator Norica Nicolai said that the committee investigated every flight through Romania's five airports between 2001 and 2006, finding no irregularities or suspicious flights.

Romania and Poland have both denied the allegations [JURIST report] since they surfaced last year, and earlier this week some members of the European parliament said they will move to have specific references to the two countries hosting secret detention centers removed [Polskie Radio report] from the final COE report, saying that there is not even enough circumstantial evidence to include them. 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.