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Telecommunications Conferences to be held from May to July, 1947, was approved, and action was initiated to bring the International Telecommunications Union and the Universal Postal Union into relationship with United Nations. Consideration was also given by the Council to travel matters, the question of inland transport, and of safety at sea and in the air. Category (A) consultative status was granted to three further non-governmental organizations—lnternational Federation of Agricultural Producers, International Federation of Christian Trade Unions, and the Inter-Parliamentary Union—while other organizations were granted the less extensive rights involved in category (B) and (C) consultative status. The position of international organizations having branches in Spain gave rise to considerable debate. A resolution proposed by the New Zealand delegate was passed providing that such organizations should be excluded from consultative status if the .policies of their Spanish branches were determined or controlled by the Franco Government, but that they should be eligible for such status if their members in Spain were not organized into a legally constituted branch, if their Spanish branches had a purely humanitarian character with their policies not determined or controlled by the Franco Government, or if the Spanish branches were not active. The Council also dealt with the reports of the Statistical and Population Commissions, with the drafting of a Convention on genocide (defined by the General Assembly as " the denial of the right of existence of entire human groups "), with the translation of the world's classics as suggested by the General Assembly and with a proposal for the revision of the Gregorian calendar. It also received reports from the Committee for the Co-ordination of the Activities of United Nations and the Specialized Agencies, from the FAO Preparatory Commission on World Food Proposals, and on Relief Needs after the Termination of UNRRA. The wide and varied scope of the duties and functions of the Council will entail considerable extra work for the Department, and it has therefore been decided to establish an office in New York to maintain liaison with the Council and its Commissions, SubCommissions, and Standing Committees. Mr. James Thorn, New Zealand High Commissioner in Canada, will generally be the New Zealand delegate to meetings of the Council. (6) Social Commission The first meeting of the Social Commission was held in New York from 20th January to 4th February, 1947. The New Zealand representative, Hon. D. Wilson, was elected Vice-Chairman of the Commission, and, in the absence of the Chairman, presented the report of the Commission to the Economic and Social Council. The Commission recommended that the United Nations should assume the functions previously performed by the League of Nations with regard to (a) traffic in women and children and in obscene publications ; (b) prevention of crime and treatment of offenders ; (c) child welfare ; and (d) assistance to indigent foreigners. It gave directions for the development of international action in these fields. The Council approved these recommendations and gave the necessary directions to the Secretary-General. The Commission and the Council also considered how to maintain and develop international action in organizing welfare services, including the problems of the training of social welfare personnel and the transfer to the United Nations of the functions in this field previously discharged by UNRRA. As a result of its consideration of the welfare of children and adolescents the Commission decided to carry on the League activities, and appointed a Committee to make a detailed report upon the whole question of child-welfare to the next meeting of the Commission. The report of the Executive Board of the International Children's Emergency Fund was also considered.

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