European Parliament to investigate CIA prison, rendition flight allegations News
European Parliament to investigate CIA prison, rendition flight allegations

[JURIST] The European Parliament [official website] announced on Wednesday that it would investigate claims [press release] that the CIA has been illegally detaining and torturing terrorism suspects in European countries or using European air bases as transit points to send suspects to other countries to be tortured, a process called extraordinary rendition [JURIST news archive]. The 46-member temporary committee [EU proposal] will have wide powers to call witnesses to investigate the claims, which may result in friction with the US government, which has denied any wrongdoing and consistently defended their actions as proper [JURIST report]. On Tuesday, Switzerland's foreign affairs committee found insufficient evidence that the US held suspects in secret prisons in Europe and voted against formally condemning the US government [JURIST report]. The Times Online 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.