Brazil Supreme Court suspends impeachment proceedings News
Brazil Supreme Court suspends impeachment proceedings

[JURIST] The Federal Supreme Court of Brazil [official website] on Wednesday suspended impeachment proceedings against President Dilma Rousseff [BBC profile] until the court can determine the constitutional validity of a secret ballot. The vote is to determine whether the congressional committee appointed to carry out the impeachment is stacked with members seeking to oust Rousseff. A decision is expected by December 16. Impeachment proceedings were opened against [JURIST report] Rousseff last Wednesday on allegations of violating fiscal laws and manipulating finances.

Brazil has been the subject of several corruption scandals in both politics and business in recent years. In October Brazil’s Federal Accounts Court [official website, in Portuguese] determined [JURIST report] that Rousseff’s government accounting practices were illegal. In September a Brazilian court sentenced [JURIST report] former treasurer of the country’s governing Worker’s Party Joao Vaccari Neto to 15 years and four months in jail for charges stemming from his connection to the Petrobras corruption scandal. Vaccari was found guilty of corruption, money laundering and conspiracy, having accepted at least USD $1 million in bribes from the oil company. Earlier in September the Federal Supreme Court of Brazil banned [JURIST report] corporate entities from providing funding to political candidates in the future in an attempt to prevent further corruption, calling the practice unconstitutional.

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.