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Africa's independence explosion will continue to have repercussions in the U.N. for some time to come. By the end of this year, four new African members will be admitted, Togo, which has just won formal independence, Somalia, Cameroon and Nigeria. British Tanganyika and the Belgian Congo have been promised independence. By 1970, the African continent may swell the ranks of the U.N. to a hundred members. Some Western statesmen predict that new members will join the anti-colonial Afro-Asian bloc, which together with the nine-nation Soviet group will then constitute an indisputable majority.

The seventeenth General Assembly of the United Nations opened this week, one year to the day after activist Dag Hammarskjold crashed to his death in an airplane over an African jungle. In the intervening period, the U.N. has moved from the early post-Hammarskjold days of stunned inactivity, through near-mortal crisis, to its present calm state of readiness for the usher in of a new era. For this evolution, Acting Secretary General U. Thant could, but modestly doesn't, take credit. The new Assembly will deal, for the most part, with old problems, the unification of Korea, disarmament, Hungary, the suspension of nuclear testing, China. But these hardy perennials will appear in the new light cast by a shifting emphasis from the historic East-West struggle to the starkly emerging North-South conflict.

The United Nations (UN) is asking the world for a $200,000,000 loan and it will be a pity, in a way, if there is no full-scale debate in the U.S. Congress over the U.S. slice of it. Devoted friends of the organization, as well as its foes, have questions about its fiscal muddle that deserve full public answers such as a Congressional investigation would give. It is not, of course, that the UN has been hiding anything. The organization's financial affairs are spread before the eyes of the world through countless documents and reports which the Fifth Committee, the Administrative and Budgetary Committee, examines with such care that a guard's salary in Geneva, Switzerland, cannot be raised without its knowledge.

As the Security Council, having met for the eighth time on the Congo problem, takes a few days' breather, it appeals that the positions of the U.S. and the Soviet Union are farther apart than they seemed to have been in the first days of the U.S. President John F. Kennedy Administration. At that time, there seemed reason to hope that an agreement could be negotiated on the following basis: compliance by Belgium with earlier UN resolutions calling for the withdrawal of all her military and para-military forces; release by the Congolese of all political prisoners, including Lumumba; reconvening of the Congolese Parliament, and neutralization of army. This four-point approach has been here set forth in the order of priority desired by the Soviets.

Never before has it been so apparent that the neutrals have a vital role to play in the U.S. Assembly and are determined to play it with all their hearts and skills. No one nation, no two nations, no single group of nations have the right to the power of life and death over millions of innocent bystanders. This is the neutralists' philosophy, and they are determined to get the "international dialogue" going again so that the problem of disarmament, which they see as a major key to peace, will ultimately, be solved.

The article presents information on General Assembly of the United Nations. The United Nations opened its 15th annual fall Spectacular-- the General Assembly on September 20, 1960. The world organization feared for its survival, as it struggled with the problem of responding to the Congo's call for help on July 12, 1960- responding, that is, within the framework of the U.N. charter and the mounting opposition of the Soviet Union. Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold made it clear, on several occasions, that if his handling of the Congo crisis were censured by the U.N., he would go. And there was little doubt in anyone's mind that much of the prestige and usefulness of the world body would go with him.

The Soviet delegation approached the Irish delegation and urged it to switch its vote from Turkey to Poland. The Russians are not the only ones at the United Nations to guess wrong on Irish intentions. In terms of political or geographical balance of power, the Irish are as unpredictable here as they ,are, by tradition, everywhere. Ireland sponsored the resolution condemning Chinese atrocities in Tibet. But it was also Ireland which was the first purely Western power to advocate a reassessment of the "Chinese question" at the United Nations.

Amidst the current peculiar trend toward personal diplomacy among the great powers, people in the United Nations (UN) are worried. The issue is a more serious one as if this continues, it is sure that the UN is headed for a fate that was met by the League of Nations, a monument to the futility of the international idea. However, each problem develops its own characteristic contours, and the world organization must feel free to adapt itself accordingly if its role is to be constructive.

The issue before the U.N. in February 1959, has been African nationalism vs. colonialism. Under what conditions and to what extent can the former colonial powers retain a foothold in the new Africa? That problem motivated the thinking of the Great Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States, on such apparently local questions as the holding of new U.N. supervised elections in the French Cameroons before independence comes in 1960.

The article focuses on the U.S. attitude towards Spain under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco. In Belgium, a half-dozen political leaders and a few hundred students have protested so have the Executive Committee of the British Labor Party, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions and the Congress for Cultural Freedom. In the U.S., twenty one American writers and other professional people signed a telegram drafted on the eve of the tenth anniversary of Human Rights Day, sent it to the U.N. These were the voices raised, all well intentioned, all indignant to reach Franco's ears like a stage whisper. Yet, as has been proven, Franco's ears are sensitive on public opinion.

Independence, democracy, dictatorship: the political drama is repeated with disturbing regularly--in Indonesia, the Sudan, Pakistan, Thailand, and perhaps Ghana. The colonial ties are broken and new countries come into being. They are all underdeveloped, not just in terms of industrial resources, but. in the trained manpower needed to take over after the colonial power pulls out. The colonial power was badly, sometimes, and usually in its own self-interest. But there was an administrative structure.

Though a reading of the Congressional Record might lead one to think otherwise, money is not the crux of the current debate on Capitol Hill, Washington D.C. over American participation in the proposed U.N. bond issue. Indeed, the money involved, $100 million, or half the total of the issue, comes to about .003 of the U.S. defense budget. Underlying the debate are questions about the U.N., and the evolution of its functions and procedures, which have arisen in many parts of the country. The existence of these doubts does not mean that the U.N. is undergoing a crisis of confidence on any national scale. A recent Gallup poll showed that 90 percent of Americans favor continued U.S. membership in the world body, and 83 percent believe that the United States should try to make the U.N. a success. But even among these U.N. supporters certain doubts persist, and they are reflected today in some of the congressional opposition to a bond issue designed to relieve the world body from its financial straits.

The article presents the epilogue by the United Nations following the death of Secretary General Dag Hammarsk. The death has compelled the U.N. authorities to resolve a long standing struggle between the west and the east over the reorganization of the U.N. Few thought that the struggle could be avoided, and many feared the consequences to themselves and to the organization of months of pressure and in-fighting that seemed certain to accompany it. There are those in the U.N. who think that the late Secretary General was an exceptional man though he tried to carry the world ahead on his shoulders too fast.

Presents letters to the editor referencing articles discussed in previous issues. "Tuition Crisis in the Ivy League States," which discusses higher education in New York; Questions raised in response to "The State of the United Nations"; "Wanted--A Peace Movement," that discusses public opinion on war.

This article focuses on the views of Paul Hoffman, head of the branch of the U.N.'s technical assistance program, regarding concentrating on research and development projects which will pave the way for fruitful investment in underdeveloped countries. Hoffman says that economic assistance is not charity, and it must not be so considered. Hoffman thinks that tax money should nor be used for give-away. Appositely, the "have-nots" lose their self-reliance and self-respect when they are charity cases.

In this article, the author critically examines the book "Bitter Lemons," by Lawrence Durrell. The author says that books about life among natives are often misleading. An author either pokes fun at the "ridiculous rustics" in his adopted country, or idealizes them as "noble savages" beyond all credible proportions. Durrell is modest in poetic yet incisive prose, he not only brings the Cypriots vividly alive, but traces the emergence of the Enosis question, their "problem," from the wine-shop conversation stage to its ugly, active terrorist evolution.