On June 6, 1961, the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development announced a $15 million loan to Ceylon for the expansion of Ceylon's electric generating capacity and for the extension of electric power distribution in western Ceylon. The loan, the third made by the Bank to Ceylon for the purpose of developing an integrated electric power system under the Department of Governmental Electrical Undertakings (DGEU), was to cover the foreign exchange requirements of the project; local currency costs were to be met from government contributions and from DGEU's earnings. The loan was a 25-year term loan at 5%¾ percent interest, with amortization to begin on November 15, 1964. Six commercial banks participated in the loan, without the International Bank's guarantee, for a total amount of $1.1 million.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) held its ninth General Conference in New Delhi from November 5 to December 5, 1956. It was presided over by Mr. Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Minister of Education (India).1 Of the 76 states which were members of UNESCO as of June 30, 1956, the Conference recognized as valid the credentials of 73 attending member states. In addition, the Conference was attended by delegates from associate members, and observers from non-member states, the UN and international and non-governmental organizations.

The first part of the eighth ordinary session of the Assembly of the Western European Union (WEU) took place in Paris from June 4 to 8, 1962. Mr. Arthur Conte (French Socialist) was re-elected President. In addition to the usual reports on defense questions, the Assembly took up the question of the negotiations between the European Common Market and the United Kingdom. On the solution of the Commonwealth problem in the negotiations, the Assembly recommended that special provisions should be worked out to cover a transitional period for imported foodstuffs, especially from the temperate zone. On political union, the Assembly's recommendation proposed that it should take the form of a Community institution, with an executive independent of the member states and responsible to an elected assembly and a ministerial council voting in some cases by qualified majority.

The United Nations cannot be expected to abolish the balancing process, which is the natural expression of the struggle for advantage and influence in international politics. It does, however, endeavor to modify the process. What are the methods which it employs? What actual effect have they had in promoting security? Above all, what relevance do they have for the conduct of American foreign policy?

Available data on the activities of the multinationals and other aspects of international economic relations have rendered traditional approaches to the study of international politics, international organizations and the international system obsolete. The political and economic facts of international life are so intertwined that it has become compulsory to resort to the findings of political economy to discuss the international system and its functions and to assess properly the role and functions of the United Nations within it.

In the name of their Peoples, the Governments represented at the Inter-American Conference for the Maintenance of Continental Peace and Security, desirous of consolidating and strengthening their relations of friendship and good neighborliness, and

No consideration of the place of Africa in the United Nations or of the role of international organization in the progress of this continent would be thinkable without an authoritative expression of views upon the subject by Africans themselves.

The Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) held its 32d session from September 30 to December 16, 1957. The Council devoted considerable attention to the planning of meetings. Since the sum appropriated by the 1956 Assembly for meetings in 1958 was approximately half of the amount required for carrying out the planned program, the Council approved the convening of only nine meetings and recommended to the next Assembly that budgetary provision should be made to permit additional ones. During its next session the Council would consider the problem of the tendency towards longer meetings and the resulting increase in cost.

One hundred and two of the 110 states members of the International Labor Organization (ILO) met in Geneva from June 17 to July 9, 1964, for the 48th session of the ILO General Conference. Among those attending the Conference were 196 government delegates, 95 employers' delegates, 95 workers' delegates, and 63 ministers of labor. Mr. A. Aguilar Mawdsley (Venezuela) was elected President and the following three delegates were elected vice presidents: Mr. K. R. Baghdelleh (Tanganyika and Zanzibar), government vice president; Mr. S. Wajid Ali (Pakistan), employers' vice president; and Mr. H. Collison (United Kingdom), workers' vice president.

The General Assembly held its twentieth session, comprising the I332nd–1408th plenary meetings, at UN Headquarters from September 21 to December 21, 1965, during which time it took action on 108 agenda items and adopted 125 resolutions. By acclamation the Assembly admitted three new states, Gambia, the Maldive Islands, and Singapore, to United Nations membership, thereby bringing the Organization's total membership to 117.

The eighteenth plenary meeting of the International Cotton Advisory Committee was held in Washington, May 14–22, 1959. Governments from 34 countries were represented as members and 24 attended as observers; representatives from ten international organizations were also in attendance. Eight resolutions were adopted by the plenary meeting, the first four of which were concerned with budgetary matters. The fifth dealt with the future work program and instructed the secretariat to prepare a statement on government regulations on cotton and a report on harsh short staple cotton; the secretariat was also instructed to keep under review the extra-long staple cotton situation, to investigate the possibility of a similar survey on long staple cottons, and to provide as much information as possible on the effect of competition from the Soviet Union, communist China, and eastern Europe on world markets for cotton and cotton textiles. The sixth resolution drew attention to the present surplus situation of extra-long staples and indicated the desirability of convening a special meeting to examine the problems of this commodity with attention to production plans and policies, price and export policies, and steps needed to encourage consumption.

On November 6, 1963, the Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) authorized its Secretary-General to conclude an agreement of cooperation between the OAS and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), included in which would be an exchange of experts in the nuclear energy field and of studies, information, and documents of common interest. A similar relationship between the OAS and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) was approved at the Council's December 4 meeting.

The fourth South Pacific Conference was held at Rabaul, New Britain, in the territory of Papua and New Guinea, from April 20 to May 13, 1959. Sixty-five delegates and advisers attended from sixteen Pacific territories and the Kingdom of Tonga. The Conference was divided into two standing committees, one dealing with social and health questions, and the other with matters affecting the economic welfare of the island peoples. For the second time in the history of the conferences, the delegates themselves elected the chairman and vice-chairman of each committee, but for the first time a woman was elected chairman of one of them, i.e., the social committee. The Conference proceedings were governed by a general committee, on which each of the six governments forming the membership of the South Pacific Commission was represented by a member of a territorial delegation; the chairman of the Conference, Mr. J. R. Halligan, Australia's Senior Commissioner on the South Pacific Commission, was the only European member of the general committee.

The Executive Board of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) held its 54th session in Paris, June 1–12, 1959. Under the heading, Execution of the Program, th Board took the following decisions, inter alia:1) to appoint a rapporteur, commissione to follow the successive discussions of the Director-General ‘s reports by the Board, for the purpose of assisting in the preparation of comments by the Board on these reports for information to the General Conference at its forthcoming session; 2) to authorize the Director-General to request the Technical Assistance Committee to contribute for 1960 a sum of $505, 779 toward the Headquarters costs of administering the Technical Assistance Program; 3) to designate twelve Member States— namely, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States—which were to be entitled to appoint a representative for two years on the Intergovernmental Advisory Committee for the Major Project on the Extension of Primary Education in Latin America; 4) to request the Director-General to accept the invitation of the government of Denmark to hold in Denmark in i960 an intergovernmental conference on international oceanographic research and training vessels; 5) to approve the celebration of the anni- 1 Document 54 EX/Decisions, June 22, 1959. For a summary of the 33d session, see International Organization, Spring 1939 (Vol. 13, No. 2), p. 324. versaries of the great personalities (Frederic Chopin and Charles Darwin) listed in one of the documents before the Board; and 6) to authorize the Director-General to signify UNESCO&'s agreement in principle to the proposals by the government of the United Arab Republic concerning international action for the study and protection of the archaeological monuments of Nubia threatened by submergence as a result of the construction of the Aswan High Dam.

The thirteenth Congress of the Universal Postal Union was held at the Palais des Academies in Brussels from May 14 to July 15, 1952, with representatives from 91 countries present. The Congress, which met to revise the convention and its executive regulations concluded at Paris in 1947 as well as facultative agreements and their executive regulations also concluded in Paris, had before it more than 1,700 proposals for amending the Paris Acts. After electing E. Pineux (Belgium) President and F. Hess (Switzerland) Vice-President, the Congress established eight committees.

“Knowledge of human nature is the beginning and the end of political education,” wrote Henry Adams. But human beings have never been able to agree on what constitutes “knowledge” of human nature and what excessively negative or naively wishful thinking about it. Because we differ in our conceptions of who we are, difficulties exist in agreeing upon what is a fit society and the methods appropriate and necessary for bringing it into being. Conflicting conceptions of human nature play a role in shaping and energizing all levels of political competition and conflict, from the interpersonal through the global.

The Indonesian question was before the Security Council twice in the period under review. On December 19, 1947, the Council decided without vote that Australia should continue as a member of the Committee of Good Offices after January 1, 1948, despite the expiration of its term as a member of the Security Council. From February 17 to February 28, 1948, the Council discussed the first interim report of the Committee of Good Offices.

Too often world food problems are viewed as North-South problems, as matters to be resolved between rich and poor. In fact, most world food trade takes place entirely among the rich. The industrial nations of the European Community, Japan, and the USSR import more food today than all of the poor countries combined. These industrial food importing nations make a dubious contribution to the stability and security of the world food system. In different measure, they seek to shift adjustment burdens onto others, to enjoy something of a free ride. All have subsidized production for export in times of world surplus, and all have stepped ahead of poor countries to purchase high priced imports in times of scarcity. To these burden-shifting trade policies, the USSR in particular adds its own troublesome nonparticipation in most multilateral efforts at world food policy management. Prospects for improved burden sharing in the future are dim. Fortunately, the world food system still gains most of its stability and security from separate production decisions within nations, rather than from collective storage, trade, or aid decisions among nations.