The annual report of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to the Economic and Social Council for the year 1953 stated that considerable progress had been made by the various countries during the year in developing or modernizing existing telecommunication networks, within the limits of technical and scientific progress and of credit available for investment in communications. The grid of telegraph and telephone circuits criss-crossing frontiers had been considerably tightened up and reinforced during 1953, important research work had been carried on, certain practical steps had been taken with a view to providing the public with semi-automatic international telephone service and a direct international telegraph subscribers' service, and the national broadcasting networks and television transmittal services had been expanded and improved. While the credit for these achievements, the report stated, was above all due to the specialists, no extension of telecommunication networks would have been possible without the intervention of the organs of ITU in the coordination of projects and in organizing cooperation between the various countries. The report contained information on ITU membership and on the organization and operation of the permanent organs of ITU, as well as a detailed summary of ITU activities during the year 1953, its relations with the United Nations and other international organizations, and its budgets for 1953 and 1954, for which the overall figures were respectively 6,225,100 and 6,367,500 Swiss francs, exclusive of United Nations technical assistance funds.

Lending Operations

During the period from March 24 to June 22, 1955, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development made nine loans in seven countries. A loan of $12 million in European currencies to the Bank of Finland was announced on March 24, bringing the total of Bank loans in Finland to over $50 million. The new loan was to be used to help finance projects for expansion and modernization of the woodproducts industry and for further development of electric power. Two commercial banks in the United States were participating in the loan, without the Bank's guarantee, to an extent of $2, 288, 000. It was expected that the Bank's loan would finance about one-fifth of the proposed projects, the remainder being financed from Finnish sources. Approximately $8 million of the loan had been allocated to five woodproducts companies and about $4 million to two electric power projects. It was further expected that about three-fourths of the foreign exchange provided by the Bank's loan would be spent in Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom and about one-fourth in the United States. The loan was for a term of 15 years at an interest of 4⅝ percent a year, including the Bank's one percent commission; amortization was to begin on April 15, 1958.

Governing Body

The Governing Body of the International Labor Organization held its 127th session in Rome from November 16 through 19, 1954, under the chairmanship of Mr. R. Ago (Italy). After deciding that the 39th session of the ILO Conference should open in Geneva on June 6, 1956, and noting that, in addition to the regular agenda items, the questions of vocational training in agriculture and welfare facilities for workers were likely to be carried over from the 38th session, the Governing Body considered several reports put before it by the Director-General (Morse) relating to possible further agenda items for the 39th session of the Conference. A study on discrimination in the field of employment and occupation, and a note setting forth certain questions relating to conditions of plantation workers were also discussed. The Governing Body decided to add to the agenda of the 39th session three new items of 1) forced labor, 2) weekly rest in commerce and offices, and 3) living and working conditions of indigenous populations in independent countries. The Governing Body's Committee on Standing Orders and the Application of Conventions and Recommendations was instructed to give further consideration to various points relating to the organization of the work of the ILO Conference, and particularly to arrangements for discussion of the Director-General's report and the work of the Conference committee on the application of conventions and recommendations.

Tenth Annual Report

The tenth annual report of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development which was transmitted to the Board of Governors on September 12, 1955, covered the activities of the Bank from July 1, 1954 to June 30, 1955. During this period the Bank had made 20 loans in 14 countries and territories, at a total of $410 million, the largest figure for a fiscal year in the Bank's history. The report noted that since the Bank had begun operations, it had made 124 loans amounting to $2,324 million in 37 countries. Two of the year's loans had been linked with a simultaneous public offering of the borrower's bonds to private international investment. The Bank reported that, as in earlier years, the greater part of the loans had been for improvement in basic services; $160 million had been lent for the expansion and improvement of transportation facilities and $110.3 million for power projects. Net income of $24.7 million was added to the supplemental reserve against losses on loans and guarantees, increasing that reserve to $122 million; the Special Reserve had been increased by $13 million, giving it a total of S62 million. The year's gross income, excluding loan commissions, had been $59 million, compared with $50 million for the preceding year. Gross expenses had amounted to $34 million, as compared with $30 million for the preceding year. The Bank attributed the rise in expenses as mainly due to increased payments of interest and other charges on the larger volume of Bank borrowings outstanding.

The second Air Navigation Conference sponsored by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) opened in Montreal on August 30, 1955. Technicians representing 26 countries members of ICAO, three non-member countries and five international organizations attended the Conference, which had on its agenda radio aids to final approach and landing, long-distance navigational aids, aircraft separation in high density traffic areas, visual flight rules, and minimum height rules. The Conference requested ICAO members to set up a system of reporting “near-misses” between aircraft in flight, with the purpose not of enforcing existing rules of the air by taking disciplinary action against the pilots concerned but, by a systematic analysis of near-misses and the determination of their causes, to find a way of avoiding them. The Conference noted that research was being carried on in regard to anti-collision lights, and recommended that member states forward to ICAO information on the results of their trials and experiments. The Conference also recommended that ICAO revise its international standards to prohibit all flights in controlled airspace between sunset and sunrise unless such flights were carried out under air traffic control from the ground, with specific permission from the appropriate authorities. After considering complications resulting from aircraft flying under Visual Flight Rules (not under ground control) in controlled airspace, the Conference proposed an amendment to the international standards on rules of the air which would bring under traffic control a number of such flights, and made several other recommendations designed to minimize the traffic complications resulting from flights not under ground control.

Council

The twenty-fourth session of the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) met in Montreal, ICAO headquarters, from January 25 to April 2, 1955. The twenty-fifth session of the Council was scheduled to open on May 17, 1955, prior to the convening of the ninth ICAO Assembly on June 1.

Ninth Annual Meeting

The ninth annual meeting of the Board of Governors of the International Monetary Fund was held in Washington from September 24 through 29, 1954, under the chairmanship of Dr. M. W. Holtrop, Governor for the Netherlands. Two of the seven plenary sessions were held jointly with the Board of Governors of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The ninth session of the contracting parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade ended on March 7, 1955. The principal obstacles to agreement before late January were felt to have been the reluctance of the United States to modify its policies on import quotas on agricultural products, the reluctance of countries adversely affected by this practice to give up their right to restrict imports of manufactures so long as the quotas continued, lack of agreement on extension of the previously negotiated tariff schedules beyond June 30, 1955, the question of agricultural subsidies as a whole, the exceptions to GATT to be permitted to a country in balance of payments difficulties, and the quantitative restrictions to be permitted under-developed countries.

Report of the Director-General

The annual report of the Director-General (Morse) of the International Labor Organization (ILO) to the 38th session of the ILO Conference had a special theme, that of labor-management relations in thedeveloping industrial society.1 The state of labor-management relations was an important conditioning factor in attaining the broad goals laid down for the ILO in recent years, the Director-General stated; for example, productivity had been widely emphasized during the preceding year, and in the last analysis, the success of efforts to bring about higher productivity depended largely on improved cooperation within industry between management and labor. Labor-management relations were fundamental to the achievement of better manpower utilization in underdeveloped countries, and to the improvement of working and living conditions. In connection with the desire for greater economic security, faulty labor-management relations, creating an obsession with security and an aversion to change on the part of labor, could result in economic stagnation. Research and standard-setting and technical assistance were noted by the Director-General as important contributions being made by the ILO to industrial development, but he stated that these activities, while related to the problems of labor and management, were limited in that they were primarily concerned with setting the goals and establishing the legislative and administrative framework for social policy. It was worth considering, he thought, whether the ILO was not in need of a more positive, active and varied program for improved labormanagement relations.

Eighth General Conference

The eighth General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) was held in Montevideo, Uruguay, from November 12 to December 10, 1954, under the chairmanship of Justino Zavala Muniz (Uruguay). Of the 72 UNESCO members, 69 attended the conference, seven of whom had become members since the last General Conference (Spain, Nepal, Libya, Chile, the Soviet Union, Byelorussia and the Ukraine) and three of whom (Czechoslovakia, Poland and Hungary) had resumed active participation after previously withdrawing. In addition, the Conference was attended by observers from non-member states, the United Nations and international and nongovernmental organizations.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

The ninth session of the thirty-four contracting parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade opened in Geneva on October 28, 1954, under the chairmanship of Mr. L. Dana Wilgress (Canada). A number of non-member states and inter-governmental organizations sent observers to the session, whose work was divided into two parts: discussion of the normal business of GATT, which extended from October 28 through November 7, and consideration of proposals for the revision of GATT, which would expire in mid-1955, and for transforming it into a more permanent organization.

International Labor Conference

The 38th session of the Conference of the International Labor Organization (ILOs) was held in Geneva from June 1 to 23, 1955, under the presidency of Mr. García Odini (Chile). The Conference had before it the annual report of the Director-General (Morse), the main theme of which was labor-management relations in the developing industrial society. After the selection committee had submitted its proposals on the composition of committees, a spokesman for the employers' delegations of Albania, Bulgaria, Byelorussia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the Ukraine, and the Soviet Union stated that the majority of the employers' group had discriminated against them and violated their rights as delegates by not including them in the lists of prospective members of committees which the employers' group had furnished the selection committee. On the request of the spokesman, a vote was taken on the lists in question; the lists were adopted by votes ranging from 124 to 139 in favor, 26 to 31 opposed, and 25 to 37 abstentions. It was later proposed by the selection committee that the eight employers' delegates who had not been chosen to sit on committees be given seats as deputy members. However, Mr. Chajn (government delegate, Poland) moved that the selection committee's proposals be amended so as to give the delegates seats as full members. Mr. McGrath (employers' delegate, United States) stated “…that no member of the United States Employers' delegation would sit on any committee with a so-called Employers' delegate or adviser from an Iron Curtain country.

Regional Meetings

During the autumn of 1954, sessions were held of six of the regional committees of the World Health Organization. From September 10 to 16, 1954, the Regional Committee for the Western Pacific held its fifth session in Manila under the chairmanship of Dr. F. S. Maclean (New Zealand). In adopting the report of the Regional Director on the activities of 1953–54, the committee expressed particular appreciation of the increase in the number of fellowships within the region. The regional program and budget for 1956 were approved, as were certain revisions in the 1955 budget made necessary by financial restrictions; the principal activities planned for 1955 and 1956 related to the control of malaria, tuberculosis, venereal diseases, and yaws, but educative and administrative aspects of public health were also included. The following were among the main recommendations and suggestions of the committee: 1) that the Regional Director allocate, so far as possible, the necessary funds for a travel study tour within the region in 1956; 2) that health authorities in the region be asked to prepare papers on the public health aspects of virus diseases; and 3) that the staff of the regional office and consultants be required to give first priority to the least favorably situated member countries. Technical discussions held during the session dealt with public health administration, with particular reference to the organization of health services. In closing, the committee decided that its sixth session should be held in September 1955, at Singapore.

Sixth Annual Report on Exchange

Restrictions

On May 4, 1955, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund (Rooth) transmitted to the Governors and members of the Fund the sixth annual report on exchange restrictions. In the third series of consultations on exchange restrictions, the Fund had consulted with 45 member governments under Article XIV, Section 2, of the Articles of Agreement. During the year reviewed, March 1954 to April 1955, the Fund reported further progress toward convertibility, although progresshad been more gradual and mainly by means of numerous relatively small measures of relaxation. There had been greater reliance on monetary and fiscal measures for coping with balance of payments problems, as contrasted with earlier reliance on restriction of foreign trade and payments; this shift in emphasis had made possible the introduction and operation of facilities for increased convertibility. Developments in the exchange and monetary field had, the report noted, focused attention on the problem of discrimination, especially in the form of bilateral agreements, and on the question of whether these arrangements were justified in a world in which there was a general trend toward multilateralism, convertibility and freedom from restriction. The period reviewed in the report was also marked by larger exchange allocations for various purposes and significant relaxation of discrimination against dollar payments. In addition, exchange controls had been simplified or their administration liberalized in a number of countries.

The seventeenth Plenary Assembly of the International Telephone Consultative Committee (CCIF) was held in Geneva from October 4 to 12, 1954, under the chairmanship of Mr. Wettstein (Switzerland). Delegates from 36 countries attended the Assembly, which in pursuance of a resolution of the Plenipotentiary Conference of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) held at Buenos Aires in 1952, considered the possible amalgamation of the CCIF and the International Telegraph Consultative Committee (CCIT). After considerable debate, the Assembly by a vote of 21 to 13 with 1 abstention expressed the view that such an amalgamation would be in the interests of the ITU. Among the technical matters dealt with at the seventeenth Plenary Assembly were 1) the general switching program, 2) protection of telecommunication lines from danger and disturbances due to neighboring power lines, 3) protection of telecommunication cables from corrosion, 4) transmission, including telephone transmission in the international service, general characteristics of telephone circuits, the use of telephone circuits for telegraphy or phototelegraphy, broadcast and television relays over metallic lines, specification of carrier systems on metallic lines, radio relay links, links between mobile radiotelephone stations and international telephone lines, the maintenance and regulation of circuits and transmission systems, international operation and rates, and international signalling and switching; and 5) graphic and letter symbols, telephone vocabulary.

Executive Board

The fifteenth session of the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) was held in Geneva from January 18 to February 4, 1955, under the chairmanship of Dr. H. Hyde (United States). The Director-General's proposals for the provisional agenda of the eighth World Health Assembly, as amended, were approved by the Board. The Board recommended that the Assembly adopt the revised rules of procedure, which the Board had re-examined and amended in the light of comments received from governments. The Board also noted that it had carried out a study of the procedure for consideration of the annual program and budget by the Assembly, in accordance with the Assembly's request, and that it believed it would be useful for the Assembly committee on program and budget to set up a working party at the beginning of each Assembly session to make a review of the financial and budgetary aspects of the proposed program and budget estimates. Proposals relating to the establishment of committees and their terms of reference were also made to the eighth Assembly.

Executive Committee

The fifth session of the Executive Committee of the World Meteorological Organi-zation (WMO) was held in Geneva from August 25 to September II, 1954, and was devoted, in large part, to preparations for the second WMO Congress, scheduled to open on April 14, 1955. The Committee reviewed the plans for the WMO program for the second financial period (1956–1960) in the light of the experience of the organization and with special attention to requests of meteorological services, other specialized agencies and the United Nations. The financial and staffing implications of the pro-posed program were also reviewed. The Committee examined the status of the ternal relations of WMO, which had recently established relations with the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization and which had granted consultative status to nine non-governmental organizations. Proposed amendments to the organization's General Regulations were approved for submission to the Congress, along with amendments to the Internal Staff Regulations designed to bring them into greater conformity with those of other international organizations.

Council

At a meeting in Cairo in June 1954, attended only by diplomatic representatives in Cairo of the League's member states, the Arab League Council approved a Pakistani proposal to hold an Arab-Islamic conference in Jerusalem. A number of appointments of League officials were made at the session, which also decided to contribute financially to the establishment of a religious institute in the Gaza Strip. The 22d session of the Council opened in Cairo on October 30, under the chairmanship of Shaykh Ibrahim al-Fadl (Saudi Arabia). A resolution was passed congratulating Egypt on the signing of the Anglo-Egyptian agreement on the Suez Canal Zone. According to press reports, it was decided at a further session of the Council to form an Arab mutual defense pact, to defend Arab states against “foreign aggression”. The pact would be a development of the present Arab collective security pact. It had also been decided, according to the press, to let Arab governments deal as they wished with United States offers of military and economic aid.

Executive Board

37th Session: The 37th session of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Executive Board was held in Paris from March 10 to April 9, 1954, under the chairmanship of Sir Ronald Adam. At its opening meeting, the Board heard oral reports from the chairman, Professor Oscar Secco Ellauri and the Director-General on a visit they had made to member states in Asia. The report of the Director-General on the activities of UNESCO in 1953 was considered by the Board in conjunction with the draft program of work and budget estimates for 1955–1956 prepared by the Director-General and the preparation of recommendations to the General Conference. The Board approved comments to be made in communicating the report of the Director-General to member states, and also a report on its own work during 1953. Various modifications in the Director-General's draft program and budget estimates for 1955–1956 were recommended by the Board, which decided to prepare its recommendations to the eighdi session of the General Conference at its 38th session, on the basis of the revised draft to be presented at that time by the Director-General. The Board approved reports from the Program Commission on Fundamental Education Centers and the special committee set up to study questions relating to subventions to non-governmental organizations.

The Council of the Arab League met in Cairo beginning December II, 1954, and adopted several recommendations proposed by the League's Political Committee which had finished its session on December 9. The Council approved of the participation of the League members in the forthcoming conference of Asian and African countries in Bandung, Indonesia, approved the appointment of Faha Hussein (Egypt) as chairman of the Arab League Cultural Committee, decided that Jordan's home guard should be strengthened, and agreed that Syria should lodge with the United Nations Security Council, on behalf of Jordan, a complaint against Israel diversion of the waters of the Jordan River. The 23d regular session of the Council opened in Cairo on March 27,1955.