In September 1968 the Henry Dunant Institute initiated its activities by a colloquium on “The modern State and the Red Cross”, and it recently published two booklets, the first of which gives the introductory addresses by four well-known persons and the second the substance of the debates which followed and which also brought out a number of facts and new ideas on a vast and important subject.

We live in a world that is changing before our very eyes—a world in which the population explosion, decolonization and the profound economic and social transformations resulting from technological development are so many forces making for the democratization of education. At the same time the acceleration of scientific progress is resulting in the more and more rapid obsolescence of knowledge, and the development of mass communication techniques and audio-visual methods is revolutionizing the traditional bases of communication. With all this it is out of the question for education to be confined, as in the past, to training the leaders of tomorrow's society in accordance with some predetermined scheme of structures, needs and ideas, or to preparing the young, once and for all, for a given type of existence. Education is no longer the privilege of an elite or the concomitant of a particular age; to an increasing extent, it is reaching out to embrace the whole of society and the entire life-span of the individual. This means that it must be continuous and omnipresent.

In 1966, we mentioned in these pages that, following the accession of the Republic of Korea to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the original Convention of 1864 was no more than a venerable museum piece.

To-day, with the accession of Costa Rica to the 1949 version, the “Geneva Convention of 6 July 1906 for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded and sick in armies in the field” is no longer binding on any State. Thus, in its turn, it becomes a thing of the past, a glorious trophy like its predecessor.

Repatriation operation.—On 2 March 1970, six detained Arab civilians, three of whom were wounded of Palestinian origin, crossed the Israeli-Jordan cease-fire line at Allenby Bridge under ICRC auspices.

On 13 December 1970 death took Miss Suzanne Ferriere, a warmhearted woman who had devoted her life to her fellow men with calm courage and exemplary modesty.

She was the niece of Dr. Frédéric Ferriere under whose orders she worked in the civilians section of the Central Prisoners of War Agency from 1914 to 1915, after which she served in the ICRC Relief Section. In that capacity she was in touch with Eglantyne Jebb in 1919 with whom she participated in the foundation of the International Union for Child Welfare, of which she later became the Secretary-General.

The ICRC has appointed Dr. Roland Marti as its permanent medical consultant.

In 1936 he joined the ICRC as a delegate and was sent to Spain during the civil war. On his return in March 1940, he was appointed head of the delegation in Germany where he served throughout the Second World War. Many missions took him to various countries, particularly in the Middle East (1948), Kashmir (1949), Bengal (1950) and Vietnam (1951).