On the invitation of the Polish Red Cross, the President of the ICRC left Geneva on 25 May for Warsaw on a five day official visit to Poland. Mr. Marcel A. Naville was accompanied by Mr. Melchior Borsinger, Delegate General for Europe and Miss Paulette Tombet, Head of the Central Tracing Agency.

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.

Mr. Nicolas Burckhardt, Director of the International Tracing Service, will be leaving his post at the end of June 1970. The position, which he has occupied since 1955, will immediately be taken over by Mr. Albert de Cocatrix, who is at present Assistant Director.

Mr Alain Modoux has been appointed Head of the Press and Information Division of the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Mr. Modoux acted on several occasions as delegate of the ICRC in the Middle East, Africa and the Far East, and was then a member of the Legal Department. He had been since the beginning of this year Acting Head of the Information Service of the ICRC.

It was with keen regret that the International Committee took note of Mr. Roger Gallopin's request to be relieved at the end of 1969 of his directorship, an office which he has discharged for many years with a competence equal to his dedication.

Meeting in plenary session, the International Committee of the Red Cross elected Mr. Harald Huber to membership.

Born in St. Gall in 1912, Mr. Huber was educated at Rorschach and St. Gall and at the universities of Geneva, Munich, and Zurich. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws at Zurich in 1938 and the lawyer's certificate at St. Gall in 1940.

The ICRC Relief Service sent several consignments of relief supplies in October 1970.

The Venezuelan Red Cross received eight first-aid kits, for a total value of 1,360 Swiss francs. Medicaments worth 23,600 Swiss francs, donated by the ICRC to the Indonesian Red Cross, were shipped from the port of Antwerp for Djakarta.

In order to make better known throughout the world the humanitarian principles of the Red Cross, the ICRC has published a school textbook, “The Red Cross and My Country”, and its complement the “Teacher's Manual”. These are for distribution in schools in Africa and in Asia x. In addition, for the armed forces, it has published the “Soldier's Manual”. The first two of these three books educate schoolchildren, by means of short illustrated texts, in the fundamental humanitarian principles, whilst the “Soldier's Manual” concentrates on the essential provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

In 1969, as at previous distributions, the National Societies vested with the appropriate solemnity the awarding of the medal to applicants selected by the ICRC and whose names appeared last year in the International Review. It is unfortunately not possible to give here a complete account of the ceremonies, since some of these have not yet taken place. Additional information which we hope to receive will however be published at a later date.

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.

Two Directors-General have so far assumed responsibility, one for the executive and the other for general affairs. As announced on the preceding page, Mr. Gallopin was relieved of his office at the end of 1969. Moreover, Mr. Jean Pictet, for his part, also desired to be relieved of his administrative functions.

In its issue of August 1970, the International Review had mentioned that 126 States were parties to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. The ICRC has since been informed by the Federal Political Department in Berne of the accession of two more States to these Conventions. The Swiss Authorities received on 5 August the notification of accession from the Republic of Chad, and on 18 August the declaration of continuity from Mauritius, which is thus bound to the Conventions as from 12 March 1968, when it became independent.

The International Committee of the Red Cross recently received a donation of ten thousand dollars (43,200— Swiss francs) from the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon.

It has also received four large donations—26,170 francs, 11,830 francs, 60,000 francs, and 100,000 francs—totalling 198,000 francs. The donors chose to remain anonymous.

Visit to U.A.R. sailors.—On 5 September, Israeli naval craft picked up in the sea several men from the wrecked Greek vessel “ Maria Kristina ”. There were among them 14 sailors of Egyptian nationality. The ICRC delegation visited them on 7 September, and on 12 September they were released under ICRC auspices.

The ICRC organized its first “ training course for delegates ” in Geneva from 11 to 14 May.

The theory lessons (humanitarian law, Geneva Conventions) and practical lessons (delegates' activities on mission), which were introduced by various ICRC collaborators, the Swiss Red Cross and medical experts, were prepared in close collaboration with the Henry Dunant Institute. During the seminar, Professor O. Reverdin gave a lecture on the subject “ Switzerland and the concept of neutrality ”.