Colombia congress passes bill recognizing rights of same-sex partners News
Colombia congress passes bill recognizing rights of same-sex partners

[JURIST] Colombia's Congress approved legislation giving same-sex couples who have cohabited for over a period of two years similar rights as regular common law marriages Thursday, which will guarantee equal rights in areas such as welfare benefits and property inheritance. The measure, opposed by the Roman Catholic church but supported by Colombian President Alvaro Uribe [official website in Spanish; BBC profile], will not allow same-sex marriage [JURIST news archive] or allow same-sex couples to adopt children.

In February, the Constitutional Court of Colombia [official website] invalidated [summary; JURIST report] a 1990 law creating a presumption that property held by "a man and a woman" who lived together in de facto marriage for at least two years was held in common. Judge Rodringo Escobar Gil wrote that the law went "against the constitutional principles of respect for human dignity, [and] the state's duty to protect all persons equally and the fundamental right to freely develop one's personality." 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.