Exchange Rates: It was announced on October 6, 1949 that the government of Uruguay had consulted with the Fund and proposed the following modifications in its exchange rates: 1) for the export of meat, wool, linseed and wheat, 1.519 pesos per dollar; 2) for the export of oils, dry and salted hides and skins, and packing house products, 1.78 pesos per dollar; 3) for the export of woolen yarns, its by-products, tanned leather and its manufacturers, 2.35 pesos per dollar; and 4) for general imports, 1.90 pesos per dollar and for imports of luxuries and non-essentials, 2.45 pesos per dollar. The Fund accepted these changes with the understanding that consultation with the Fund would continue in order to unify the rate and to agree on a par value.

On March 31, 1950, the United States gave notice that it would not carry out with respect to the American zone of Germany the provisions of the Copenhagen agreement on radio wave lengths signed, under ITU auspices, by all the countries of Europe. On that date new frequency assignments were made for German and official United States radio outlets, duplicating wave lengths assigned to other nations. The new wave lengths became effective on March 15. The United States was not a signatory to the Copenhagen plan and had frequently stated objections to the assignments made under it. The Director of Public Affairs in the Office of the High Commissioner for Germany (Nicholson), in explaining the United States decision, pointed out that the Copenhagen assignments “made no adequate provision for the continuation of the broadcasting services now being rendered and considered an absolute necessity in the United States zone of Germany and the American sector of Berlin.” In order to prevent interference in the broadcasting areas of nations previously assigned the wave lengths subject to duplication, the United States would expedite the construction of directional antennae. In place of the sixteen frequencies previously in use in the United States zone, thirty frequencies were to be utilized after March 15, some of comparatively low power. The frequencies previously assigned were alleged by the United States to be off the normal range of bands used in receivers in Germany.

Tariff negotiations were to commence September 28 at Torquay, England between the contracting parties of GATT. In August the United States announced its intention to negotiate with Cuba at the September meeting in addition to the 23 previously named countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Italy, Korea, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Sweden, Turkey, Union of South Africa and the United Kingdom). It was announced that Nicaragua had become the first Central American republic to approve GATT.

The semi-annual report of the Director-General (Kingsley) covering the period from July 1, 1949 to December 31, 1949 stated that during the second half of 1949 the organization had re-established refugees at an average rate of about 27,800 per month. By December 31, 1949 the total had reached 758,923, of whom 68,778 had been repatriated and 690,145 had resettled in new countries. Late in the year, however, severe reductions in the United States and Australian programs intervened, so that in December only 19,043 were resettled. The last six months of 1949 had emphasized programs implementing decisions of the General Council to extend the life of IRO into 1951, establish a series of date lines in order to keep the organization's responsibilities within the limits of the time and funds at its disposal, intensify and broaden the counselling program to obtain as complete and accurate view possible of the task remaining and to budget up to $22,000,000 for use in solving the “hard core” problem.

The fourth session of the General Council of the International Refugee Organization met in Geneva from October 11 to 20, 1949. An agenda of thirteen items was adopted.

The annual report of the Director-General (Kingsley) on the activities of the organization during the year ended June 30, 1949 was adopted and the Director-General was invited to prepare a further document on the refugee problem and the contribution made to its solution by IRO. In presenting his report for the year July 1, 1948 to June 30, 1949, the chairman of the eligibility review board stated that more than 8,000 decisions had been taken. The Council expressed the desire that the second appeal procedure of the board be continued, and then adopted the report unanimously.

In May 1950 the United Nations Secretary-General (Lie) and the Director-General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (Bodet) submitted a joint report to the Economic and Social Council entitled “Teaching about the United Nations and the Specialized Agencies”. This was in response to resolution 203 (VIII) of ECOSOC which requested the Secretary-General and the Director-General of UNESCO to submit jointly, not later than June 1, 1950, a complete, analytical report on the progress achieved in teaching about the United Nations in educational institutions of member states. The report was based largely on information received from nineteen member countries during 1949, but use also was made of statements received and included in two interim reports on teaching about the United Nations submitted to ECOSOC in 1948 and 1949. Altogether reports from 37 members were analyzed.

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade

Fourth Meeting of the Contracting Parties:The contracting parties of GATT concluded their fourth meeting in Geneva on April 4, 1950. The group made arrangements for the third round of negotiations between the contracting parties to begin on September 28, in Torquay, England. One important project of the meeting was an examination of the operation of import and export controls in participating countries. Certain types of restriction were declared contrary to Article 11 of the General Agreement: 1) tying the sale of one item considered essential by some importing country to the purchase of something it would not otherwise purchase from that source; 2) making issuance of an export license dependent upon the exporter's getting an import permit from some other country (possibly a third country) for a product such a country would not otherwise purchase; 3) using the export-licensing procedure to enforce a minimum export price — with the object of keeping the prices of raw materials, for example, lower in the producing than in the importing country; 4) using the export-licensing procedure to withhold raw materials altogether from the competitors of a country's own export industries.

On October 31, 1949, the Executive Secretary of ITO (Wyndam-White) circulated to the governments signatory to the Havana Charter a questionnaire as to the dates upon which the government concerned expected to submit the ITO charter to its legislature for ratification, and by which the ratification process was expected to be completed. As of that date, only two signatories, Australia and Liberia, had completed ratification. Of the governments which had responded to a previous inquiry of the Executive Secretary, four (United States, Denmark, France and Norway) had submitted the charter and three others announced their intention of doing so “soon.”

Executive Board

The nineteenth session of the Executive Board of UNESCO met from February 13 to 25,1950. Discussion of the program to be presented to the fifth session of the General Conference continued. The Board attempted to design the program to fit a budget of $8,000,000 — the same figure as for 1950. Other arrangements for the Florence Conference were completed. Invitations were sent to the occupying authorities in the Eastern and Western Zones of Germany and in Japan to send observers, accompanied, if they wished, by expert nationals, to the General Conference. A credit of $40,000 was extended to allow UNESCO to continue for the rest of 1950 its assistance to refugee children in the Middle East. The Board discussed other program activities including the sending of a mission of experts to Ecuador to advise in fundamental education experiments in the areas recently devastated by earthquake. Finally it was decided to recommend that the Conference accept the applications for membership from the United States of Indonesia, the Republic of Korea, and the Hashemite Kingdom of the Jordan.

Meeting in December 1949 for its eighteenth session, the Executive Board of UNESCO elected Sir John Maud (United Kingdom) as its chairman for 1949–50. The Board devoted most of its attention to the work of the fifth General Conference which it decided to convene in Florence, Italy, on May 22, 1950; the chief task of the Conference would be to consider the “streamlined” program of operations approved by the fourth General Conference in Paris in 1949. The Board decided to abandon the practice of an opening general debate adopted at the Paris conference and to substitute a general discussion of the Director-General's report, thus permitting the delegations to go fully into the aims and policies of the organization. In preparation for the conference, the Executive Board instructed its program committee to prepare a program of three parts: 1) a basic program of operations, 2) a list of methods by which the program could be implemented, and 3) a work plan for 1951. At the same session, the Board authorized the Director-General to establish liaison with the Council of Europe as a part of UNESCO's program of cooperation with regional organizations. In view of the fact that the Council had created and intended to create no machinery for educational and cultural purposes, the Executive Board instructed the Director-General to examine the possibility of concluding an agreement with the Council in order that UNESCO might carry out certain phases of educational and cultural activity on its behalf.

The Third World Health Assembly met in Geneva from May 8 to May 27, 1950. Notice of Poland's decision to withdraw from WHO was received August 15 by the Director-General (Dr. Brock Chisholm). By its action, Poland became the tenth member to withdraw. However the Third Assembly did not officially accept the resignations as there was no provision for withdrawal in the WHO Charter and asked that the decisions be reconsidered.

International Telegraph and Telephone Conference: The International Telegraph and Telephone Conference was held in Paris from May 23 to August 4, 1949 to amend the regulations drawn up at Cairo in 1938. In addition the conference considered questions referred to it by the International Telegraph Consultative Committee. Attention was concentrated on two items: unification of categories of telegrams; and tariff principles. The number of categories of telegrams was reduced from five to three, and all member countries were granted freedom to fix their own terminal and transit rates, as the conference abolished the Cairo regulation which had imposed restrictive rates for countries in the European system in their relations with countries in the extra-European system. The conference devised rules and a method of calculating rentals applicable to the joint use of circuits operated by start-stop apparatus in the European civil aviation system. The telephone regulations devised applied only to countries within the European system, whereas the telegraphy regulations were applicable throughout the world.

The fifth session of the WHO Executive Board was held in Geneva from January 16 to February 2, 1950. Long-range plans for WHO operations were outlined, and the Board recommended that the 1951 program should continue at the same general level, with primary emphasis on strengthening national health administrations and on control work against malaria, tuberculosis, and venereal disease. Development of services in the fields of maternal and child health, mental health, nutrition, sanitation, health statistics and medical training facilities would also be stressed.

The annual report of the Universal Postal Union for 1949 was submitted to the eleventh session of the Economic and Social Council in accordance with Article V of the agreement between the United Nations and UPU. The Union reported the retirement, effective January 1, 1950, of Dr. Alois Muri as Director of the International Bureau and the subsequent appointment of Fritz Hess, Director-General of the Swiss Posts, as Dr. Muri's successor. The Union further reported that during 1949, 67 postal administrations, nineteen fewer than in 1948, had settled their transit charge accounts through the general clearing account; the annual general account for reply coupons involved a sum total of 505,159 gold francs as some 12,000,000 coupons were supplied by the International Bureau to various postal administrations; 653,744 postal identity cards were also made available to member administrations. During the year, the International Bureau received no communications regarding arbitral awards given or to be given under Article 12 of the Paris Convention of 1947, although various other disputes as well as non-litigious questions were communicated to the Bureau. Japan, CeyIon, Burma, and Israel notified the Bureau during the year of their accessions to the 1947 convention; various other ratifications and accessions with reference to supplementary protocols and agreements were also communicated to the Bureau in 1949.

The conference which was concluded at Annecy August 13, 1949 consisted of two separate meetings: the third session of the Contracting Parties to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade; and a series of tariff negotiations among the 23 contracting parties and eleven other governments which wished to accede to GATT.

The Political Committee of the Arab League met in Alexandria on August 14, 1950 to prepare a common program for the meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. It was also reported in the press, however, that one of the main subjects for discussion was the wide divergence of opinion among the Arab states, concerning United Nations intervention in Korea, the Palestine problem, the nomination of an Arab state to the United Nations Security Council, to which Lebanon and Turkey had announced themselves candidates, and the proposals of the United Nations Conciliation Commission for the solution of the Palestine problem. Press reports further indicated that Egypt had agreed that the question of Jordan's status in the League, after the annexation of east Palestine, would not come up again until the October meeting of the Council of the League. The League was reported as anxious to obtain United Nations recognition as a regional organization with official standing, similar to that of the Organization of American States. As a preliminary to such recognition it was believed necessary to obtain the signatures of all the League members to the collective security pact which had been adopted by the Council at its last meeting. On August 17, 1950 the Political Committee decided to direct its members to inform the United Nations that the demands concerning Arab refugees in Palestine would be pressed in the General Assembly, and would insist on concrete implementation of the United Nations resolutions calling for the return of Arab refugees to their original homes and the internationalization of Jerusalem.

On July 20, 1950 the seventh periodic meeting of the Western Union Defense Committee took place. Present were the defense ministers of Belgium, France, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Luxembourg as well as the military, air and naval chiefs. The ministers considered the international military situation and some proposals drawn up by the commanders-in-chief. They recognized the necessity of speeding up, without delay, the production of war material and of increasing the defensive power of the western union land, air and sea forces “as a guarantee against aggression.”

On March 23, 1950, the Convention of the World Meteorological Organization came into force. The convention had been opened for signature in Washington on October 11, 1947.

The convention provided for the creation of a World Meteorological Organization as a specialized agency of the United Nations; its basic objectives would be to coordinate, standardize, and improve international meteorological activities, and to encourage “an efficient exchange of weather and other meteorological information in the aid of human activities.” The new group was to continue the activities of the semi-official International Meteorological Organization, which had functioned since 1878.

Third World Health Assembly

Delegates and observers from over 63 countries and territories, and observers from other specialized agencies of the United Nations and interested non-governmental organizations attended the Third World Health Assembly, which met in Geneva from May 8 to May 27, 1950. Rajkumari Amrit Kaur, Minister of Health of India, was unanimously elected President of the Assembly, which discussed three main topics: the program for 1951, the budget and other financial questions, and constitutional questions.

In his report to the fourth session of the General Conference of UNESCO, the Director-General (Torres Bodet) set forth concrete proposals and principles by which UNESCO activities in 1950 should be governed. A code of eighteen directives, approved by the Executive Board, was submitted to the Conference for adoption as basic principles, designed to serve as bridges between the pur-poses and functions outlined in general form by the UNESCO constitution and the specific program resolutions adopted by the General Conference. As guided by the principles, UNESCO's future programs would be devoted to the maintenance of approved continuing services and the execution of a limited number of specific projects sanctioned by the General Conference from time to time, forming a coherent whole of matters of “evident importance and usefulness.” The organization would cooperate closely with the United Nations, the specialized agencies, and other national and international organizations assisting in the establishment and development of organizations and in the coordination of their activities. In education, the organization would serve as a center for the exchange of ideas and practices, and for the dissemination of knowledge promoting the growth of effective educational systems and the improvement of living conditions. Future programs would seek to make better known the results of research in the social sciences, encourage intellectual and artistic exchanges, and assist in the development of greater understanding through personal contacts. In a second phase of activity, UNESCO would broaden progressively “into a more general activity for the raising of standards in education, science and culture,” rather than reconstruction, and would direct “increasing attention” upon the needs of under-developed countries and upon the problems within its competence arising in trust and non-self-governing territories.