Syria to try former VP on treason charges for Hariri allegations News
Syria to try former VP on treason charges for Hariri allegations

[JURIST] The Syrian government announced Monday that it will put former Vice President Abdel Halim Khaddam [Wikipedia profile] on trial for high treason and investigate his alleged acts of corruption in response to demands by Syrian parliament members [JURIST report] that Khaddam be investigated and following his expulsion from the country's ruling Baath party. Khaddam claimed in an interview last week that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad [BBC profile] had threatened the life of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri [JURIST news archive] at a meeting in Damascus two months prior to Hariri's assassination on February 14. A UN committee, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, has been looking into the Hariri assassination [UN materials] and released a new report [JURIST report] last month which further implicated Syrian and Lebanese intelligence services in Hariri's death. In response to the government's announcement Monday, parliamentary speaker Mahmud al-Abrash said in a letter that he hopes Khaddam will be brought to trial promptly. AFP 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.