The International Wheat Council held its twenty-ninth session in London, April 5–12, 1960, under the chairmanship of Sir Edwin McCarthy (Australia), for the purpose of reviewing the world wheat situation in accordance with Article 21 of the 1959 International Wheat Agreement. Representatives of 30 countries or territories attended the meeting, along with observers from the UN, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and the European Economic Community. According to the press, the results of the first annual review of the world wheat situation, published on May 25, 1960, confirmed that the national wheat policies of the majority of exporting and importing countries were in open conflict with international realities, inasmuch as the world wheat market had been overshadowed for the past five years by burdensome surpluses and, despite government-assisted programs which had raised the volume of world wheat and flour exports to over 30 million metric tons a season, there was no prospect that the imbalance between supplies and demand would disappear during the next five years.

A meeting of the Special Subcommittee of the International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC) on extra-long staple cotton was convened in Alexandria, Egypt, on September 7, 1959. Delegations were present from the principal extra-long staple cotton-producing countries (the Sudan, the United Arab Republic, and the United States), along with observers from Brazil, Peru, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and the Food and Agriculture Organization. Mr. Abd El Latif Ezzat, Under-Secretary of State for Cotton Affairs of the Ministry of Economy of the United Arab Republic, was elected chairman, and Mr. Robert B. Evans, executive secretary of ICAC, served as secretary. The meeting adjourned on September 12 after eight sessions. Its agenda was devoted to a consideration of production plans and policies, pricing and export policies, and steps needed to encourage consumption.

The thirteenth session of the Assembly of the World Health Organization (WHO) was held in Geneva, from May 3 to 20, 1960. In his inaugural address, the President of the Assembly, Dr. H. B. Turbott, spoke of the ground gained by the idea of world health since the early days of WHO, of the new and growing challenges with which the Assembly would have to deal in discussing the 1961 program—such as the control of pestilential diseases, protection against radiation hazards, the evaluation of live poliomyelitis vaccine, extended nutrition programs, and the world shortage of competent health personnel—and of the problems of particular concern to the more developed countries, such as heart, cancer, and mental illness. Dr. Turbott also described the integration of preventive and curative services as one field to which WHO should devote more attention. The Director-General, presenting his report on the work of WHO during 1959, stressed the urgency of the world-wide malaria eradication campaign, pointing out that malaria was the most important single obstacle to the development of the economic and social potentials of the underdeveloped areas of the world. The year 1959, he continued, had witnessed intensified research activities by the Organization, an increase in experts trained under WHO's fellowship program, and improved coordination between inter-country and inter-regional projects, but the problem of the resistance of malaria vectors to insecticides remained an obstacle to malaria eradication, and the question of funds for international technical assistance was still unsolved. In concluding, the Director-General predicted diat, at die present rate of progress, malaria could be eradicated, at least from Europe, the Americas, North Africa, and large parts of Asia, within perhaps the next ten years.

The International Lead and Zinc Study Group held its first session in Geneva from January 27 to February 3, 1960. Representatives were present from Australia, the Belgian Congo, Belgium, Luxembourg, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Finland, France, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Peru, Poland, the Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, the Union of South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, West Germany, and Yugoslavia. Mr. G. J. McMahon (United Kingdom) was elected chairman of the session, and Mr. C. W. Nichols (United States) was elected vice-chairman.

According to press reports, the Arab League Council, at an April 3, 1960, meeting in Cairo, decided tentatively that its members should sever diplomatic relations with France in protest of the second French atomic test in the Sahara, and recommended the freezing of French assets in several Arab countries, as well as the boycotting of Paris economically and culturally. The action did not apply to Iraq and Tunisia, since they were not represented at the meeting, and it was considered doubtful that Lebanon would accede to such measures due to its traditional attachment to France.

The press reported in March 1960 that the International Tin Council had again raised the export quotas for its six producing members, this time to 37,500 tons for the June quarter. Previous increases had raised the limit by 2,000 tons to 25,000 for the third quarter of 1959; by 5,000 tons to 30,000 for the fourth quarter of 1959; and by 6,000 tons to 36,000, or 95 percent of capacity, for the first quarter of 1960. This last increase raised the export quota of the Federation of Malaya to 13,590 long tons, or 37.75 percent of the global quota. The first-quarter quotas for the other five producing countries were as follows: Bolivia, 6,984 tons (19.4 percent); Indonesia, 6,804 tons (18.9 percent); Belgian Congo, 3,258 tons (9.05 percent); Thailand, 3,168 tons (8.8 percent); and the Federation of Nigeria, 2,196 tons (6.1 percent). The Malayan quota was equivalent to 91.7 percent of the quarterly production in that country in 1957, prior to the establishment of controls; as a result of the substantial quota, all mines operating in Malaya between January 1953 and December 1957 became eligible to resume operations. Applications from new mines were also to be accepted. Thailand's quota for the first quarter of 1960 was 20 percent above that for the last quarter of 1959, which meant that mines operating at 60–80 percent of capacity in late 1959 might increase operations to 90 percent; in the early part of 1959, when Thailand's tin export quota was low, mines had operated at only 50 percent of capacity, and more than 1,000 mine workers had been dismissed during the year.

The seventh joint meeting of the members of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and of the European Parliamentary Assembly of the European Communities was held on June 24 and 25, 1960, in the House of Europe at Strasbourg, with the Presidents of the two Assemblies presiding alternately over the sittings.

On May 17, 1960, the European Parliamentary Assembly adopted unanimously, with 12 abstentions, a draft convention for election of its members by direct universal suffrage. The members of the Assembly were currently nominated by the six member national parliaments in proportion to party strength, but were the draft project, which had first to be approved by the Council of Ministers and ratified by the six national parliaments, to come into effect, a parliament directly responsible to the electorate of the six countries would be created for the first time. Elements of the proposal included: 1) an increase in the number of members from 142 to 426 who would vote individually and be forbidden to accept imperative instructions; and 2) a temporary provision proposing that, until the end of the transition period of the common market, only two-thirds of the members be directly elected, the other third to be appointed by the national parliaments as at present.

An arrangement between India and the United Kingdom was reported on June 9, 1960, in which India agreed to waive, so far as the seven countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) were concerned, some of the preferences enjoyed by Indian exports in the United Kingdom, insisting, however, on safeguards to protect Indian goods from EFTA competition. The United Kingdom, in return, promised not to increase the current level of duties on Indian goods, as well as to review the entire pattern of trade, if, at a future date, EFTA were to collaborate with the common market countries.

According to press reports, a meeting of the permanent Council of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on March 10, 1960, announced the full support of the Council for the Western disarmament plan providing for progressive nuclear and conventional disarmament in three stages which was to be presented at the ten-nation disarmament conference the following week.

A conference of the foreign ministers of the Organization of American States (OAS) opened in San José, Costa Rica, on August 16, 1960, to discuss an agenda reportedly headed by the following items: 1) “strengthening of continental solidarity and of the inter-American system, especially before the threats of extracontinental intervention”; and 2) “inter-American cooperation … for the defense of American democratic institutions against subversive activities of any organization, government, or its agents, directed against these institutions.” The Council had rejected a Cuban substitute agenda centering on charges of United States aggression against Cuba.

There was announced in Paris, in July, a series of meetings attended by representatives of the eighteen member countries of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), as well as by representatives of the United States, Canada, and the European Communities, which were concerned with the framework and scope of the new Organization for European Cooperation and Development (OECD), intended to replace OEEC. Discussion centered on whether or not the solution of trade problems should be included as one of the objectives of the future organization, with differences of opinion over the scope of the organization being expressed by proponents of the Europe of the old OEEC versus participants in the European Economic Community (EEC) and others, the former convinced of the need for a European forum of discussion of trade questions, and the latter preferring to work out such problems through the world organization of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). A special report, considered at a previous meeting of the same representatives in May, had recommended the establishment of an organization which was to be largely a consultative body with no definite responsibility for trade questions, but because of disagreement on the part of some of the smaller countries, notably Sweden and Switzerland, a working party had been set up, which, at the July meeting, recommended the establishment of a trade committee, whose task was to be the examination of all trade questions, subject to some liberalization of OEEC obligations.

The Assembly of Western European Union (WEU) held the first part of its sixth ordinary session in Paris from May 31 to June 3, 1960. After Mr. Badini Confalonieri (Italian Liberal) had been reelected President of the Assembly, the first item of business was the presentation of the fifth report of the Council of WEU, covering the period from January 1 to December 31, 1959, by Mr. van Houten, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands and Chairman ad interim of the Council. In connection with the transfer of social and cultural activities from WEU to the Council of Europe, he pointed out that, by means of partial agreements, the seven governments of WEU remained free to undertake new activities either among themselves or within the framework of the WEU Council, and that only the implementation of current activities was to become the responsibility of the Council of Europe. Speaking next of the Standing Armaments Committee and of the Agency for the Control of Armaments, Mr. van Houten stated that the procedure for cooperation in the field of equipment formulated by the Committee had been successful and that the Control Agency had continued to develop its activities. Concluding his report, he pointed to the importance of political consultations within WEU as a means of enabling members to discuss differences of opinion and thereby come nearer to a solution. In the general debate which followed, members stressed the importance of cooperation in armaments and civil defense.

The 30th annual report of the Bank for International Settlements, covering the financial year from April 1, 1959, to March 31, 1960, was submitted to the annual general meeting of the Bank held in Basle on June 13, 1960.1 In his introduction, the General Manager of the Bank, Mr. Guillaume Guindey, reported that the net profit for the thirtieth financial year had amounted to 15,314,716 gold francs, compared with 9,550,894 gold francs for the preceding year. In view of these very favorable results, the Board of Directors of the Bank had recommended the extraordinary distribution of 42.50 gold francs per share, in addition to the regular dividend of 37.50 gold francs per share; thus the total distribution for this year would amount to 80 gold francs, payable in Swiss francs in the amount of 114.30 Swiss francs per share.

In May 1960, it was announced that coffee export quotas, amounting to 7, 600, 000 BAGS of 132 pounds each, and adding 1, 302, 040 bags to the previously agreed annual quotas totaling 32, 650, 000 bags, had been fixed for the second quarter of 1960 by the directors of the International Coffee Agreement. For the full year, export quotas for eleven members had been revised upward, under a provision of the Agreement tying exports to the production estimates of the United States Department of Agriculture. Under the current revision, Brazil had been granted the largest quota —4, 139, 000 bags—and Colombia, the second largest—1, 417, 000 bags—each being permitted to export more than the quotas assigned, should the world market require more coffee.

In May 1960, it was announced that coffee export quotas, amounting to 7, 600, 000 bags of 132 pounds each, and adding 1, 302, 040 bags to the previously agreed annual quotas totaling 32, 650, 000 bags, had been fixed for the second quarter of 1960 by the directors of the International Coffee Agreement. For the full year, export quotas for eleven members had been revised upward, under a provision of the Agreement tying exports to the production estimates of the United States Department of Agriculture. Under the current revision, Brazil had been granted the largest quota —4, 139, 000 bags—and Colombia, the second largest—1, 417, 000 bags—each being permitted to export more than the quota assigned, should the world market require more coffee.

The International Lead and Zinc Study Group held its second session, attended by delegates from 23 countries, in Geneva, September 12–15, 1960, according to the press. Mr. G. J. MacMahon (United Kingdom) presided over the session, the main purpose of which was reportedly to review the current statistical situation in lead and zinc. In regard to lead, the Study Group was stated to have observed that, after taking into account net trade with the centrally-planned economies, the balance between new supplies and demand showed a statistical surplus of lead metal of 21,000 tons for 1960 and 26,000 tons for 1961, with producers' stocks of lead metal at the very high level of 334,000 tons in July of the current year, divided about evenly between the United States and the rest of the world. New supplies, the report continued, appeared to be in better balance with anticipated demand than in recent years, but statistics, which as of the end of June showed metal stocks in the hands of producers to amount to 276,000 tons, did not indicate any immediate prospect of a significant change in stocks. With regard to zinc, it was announced that the steady rise in consumption was expected to continue in 1960 and 1961, and an even greater increase in production was forecast, although most. delegations were said to feel that action by the Study Group was not necessary, since stocks in many countries were at normal levels or below. In reply to concern expressed by some delegations about the continued existence of protective restrictions and about releases from noncommercial stocks, governments were urged not to impose additional barriers to trade in this field, and both governments and industries were urged to avoid any course which might frustrate the efforts being made to bring about a satisfactory balance between supply and demand.