The Joint Commission entrusted with the distribution of the income of the Empress Shóken Fund met in Geneva on 17th March 1967. The Japanese Red Cross was represented by His Excellency Ambassador Mono Aoki.

A film called “Presence of the Red Cross in Vietnam” produced by the ICRC Information Department, is now available in French, English and German. It shows, in approximately twenty minutes, the healing influence of the Red Cross against the devastating background of war.

The Neutral Commission of Experts appointed by the International Committee to examine the cases of victims of pseudomedical experiments in concentration camps under the Nazi regime, to whom the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany is prepared to pay indemnity, again met at ICRC headquarters on September 15 and 16. The meeting was chaired by Mr. William Lenoir, a judge of the Geneva Court of Justice, and was attended by Dr. Alex Muller, Professor at the Geneva University Faculty of Medicine, Dr. Sylvain Mutrux, Assistant Medical Director of the Bel-Air psychiatric clinic, Mrs. Böde, Dr. Bàcs and Mr. Pàsztor, representing the Hungarian Red Cross and Dr. Götz, representing the Red Cross in the Federal Republic of Germany.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has continued its exchange of correspondence with the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam on various humanitarian problems raised by the present conflict. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Hanoi has declared that it could not accept the proposal made by the United States to hold a conference in order to examine ways of applying the Geneva Conventions, a proposal which had been transmitted by the ICRC. The same ministry has acknowledged receiving various communications from the ICRC, in particular the nominal roll of 19 North Vietnamese seamen captured by the US Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin and the two reports drawn up following on visits made to these seamen by ICRC delegates.

ICRC medical teams.—In October the medical team led by Dr. Kaare Sandnaes, surgeon, placed by the Norwegian Red Cross at the disposal of the International Committee of the Red Cross, as part of its medical programme in Nigeria, was installed in the Uromi hospital some 70 miles North of Benin.

Meeting in plenary session, the International Committee of the Red Cross elected the following new members: Mrs. Denise Bindschedler-Robert, Mr. Marcel Naville and Dr. Jacques F. de Rougemont.

The Département politique fédéral in Berne has informed the ICRC of the adherence of the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions.

Middle East 1967 is a new 20 minute film in colour produced by the International Committee. French, English, German and Spanish versions are obtainable from the ICRC.

The Red Cross extends its aid to several countries of the Near East where the war wrought much havoc. The ICRC has established delegations there and also sub-delegations in certain places. To give our readers a picture of Red Cross work “on the ground”, we describe the day to day activity of one of these. We therefore put questions to Miss L. Reymond, who stayed in Jerusalem until July 20, 1967, and lived through that period of great anxiety for the inhabitants of the old city and its outskirts.

The Federal Political Department has just informed the International Committee of the Red Cross that the State of Kuwait, in a letter received on September 2, 1967, has announced to the Swiss Federal Council its adherence to the four Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949.

Mr. Guillaume Bordier will continue as Vice-President of the International Committee in 1967 ; Mr. Frédéric Siordet has been appointed Vice-President for 1967 and 1968.

The ICRC had submitted to the XXth International Conference of the Red Cross a report on the status of civil defence personnel. Following up Resolution XXIX adopted on that subject by the Conference, the ICRC convened a meeting in Geneva from October 31 to November 3, 1967, of an advisory group of experts on the position of civil defence bodies.

In January 1967 and on the request of an Indian national living in Geneva the ICRC, through the National Red Cross Society in Karachi, asked the Pakistan Government to grant an entry visa to Mr. Ch. J., to enable him to go from India to Pakistan to visit his aged and ailing father, a recent widower. According to his religion, an only son must perform certain rites upon his mother's death.

The Département politique fédéral in Berne has informed the ICRC of the adherence of the Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville) to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions.

A series of six test broadcasts were recorded in the ICRC studios in 1966 and sent out on the short-wave band by the Schwarzenburg transmitter. We would add that the Radiocommunications Service during the past year studied 1,550 listeners' reports sent by 760 correspondents from 36 countries, and 61 tape recordings also sent by correspondents.

The ICRC has just published, in a sixty page volume entitled The Principles of International Humanitarian Law, the articles written by Mr. Jean Pictet, Director-General of the ICRC. These articles featured recently in consecutive issues of the International Review.