Rare Items

This week U.N.'s General Assembly moved to create a couple of new states. By an overwhelming vote (48 to 1, with nine abstentions) the Assembly decided, after weeks of bickering and Soviet-bloc obstruction, that the former Italian colony of Libya (pop. 1,120,000) shall be independent in 1952. A U.N. commissioner and advisory council will govern the country until then.

The Assembly also put Italian Somaliland (pop. 915,000) under a ten-year Italian trusteeship, to be followed by full independence. The fate of Eritrea, Italy's third former colony, which Ethiopia would like to annex, will be considered later, after a U.N. commission makes a firsthand study.

The rulings were rare items: Assembly decisions that would stick. In the peace treaty with Italy, the Big Four had agreed in advance that they would accept U.N.'s recommendations.

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