Russia top court upholds new Khodorkovsky investigation News
Russia top court upholds new Khodorkovsky investigation

[JURIST] The Russian Supreme Court [official website; in Russian] has overruled a lower court decision [JURIST report] that had held that a new investigation into the activities of Yukos [JURIST news archive] founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky [defense website; JURIST news archive] and his partner Platon Lebedev [defense website] was illegal. The Supreme Court decision permits Russian prosecutors to press ahead with charges of embezzlement, expropriation and money laundering. Khodorkovsky's lawyers say they will appeal the ruling to the European Court of Human Rights [official website].

Khodorkovsky was convicted of fraud and tax evasion in 2005 and is currently serving an eight-year prison sentence at a penal colony in Chita, eastern Siberia. RIA Novosti 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.

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