Each month the International Review has been publishing news of ICRC relief work in Nigeria and Biafra which began in July 1967 with consignments of medical supplies and delegates to each side. This action has ceaselessly developed as the number of victims increased and famine took its toll. We give below a summary of the position as at the end of July 1968.

The ICRC delegate in Hong Kong was given permission in April and May to visit two prisons which held persons convicted or interned as a result of the events in 1967. He was able to talk without witnesses with detainees of his own choosing. He subsequently made known his observations and recommendations to the authorities concerned.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has appointed Dr. Hans Meuli and Dr. Jacques de Rougemont to the Presidential Council for the next two-year period.

In its number for June 1968, the International Review mentioned that 118 States were parties to the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. Since then, the International Committee of the Red Cross has been informed by the Federal Political Department in Berne of the participation by the Kingdom of Lesotho in these Conventions.

The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mr. Samuel Gonard, was received on 8 July by U.N. Secretary-General U. Thant. With him were Mr. Jean Pictet, ICRC Director-General and Mr. Pierre Basset, Assistant Director.

On May 5, 1955 the four Powers (Federal Republic of Germany, United States, France, Great Britain) entrusted the administration of this service (ITS) to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The agreements on the ITS, having expired on May 5, 1965 for a second time, have now been extended for an indefinite period with one year's notice of termination between the contracting parties.

Last year was notable, for National Societies as well as for Red Cross international institutions, for its intense relief work. Readers may be interested in the following tables which show this. It will be noticed that there were thirty-four beneficiary countries and over fifty donor countries.