In a letter dated 27 April 1973, which reached the Swiss Government on the same day, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Singapore informed the Swiss Federal Council of Singapore's accession to the four 1949 Geneva Conventions.

small number of government experts from twenty countries gathered in Geneva at the International Committee of the Red Cross for meetings from 15 to 19 January 1973. The purpose was to lend assistance to the ICRC in deciding upon appropriate texts from among a number of different proposals submitted at the second session of the Conference of Government Experts in May and June 1972, relating to certain important points concerning the Draft Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions.

We have the honour to inform you that the International Committee of the Red Cross, on 20 September 1973, officially recognized the Bangladesh Red Cross Society.

On a visit to Switzerland, H.I.H. Princess Yuriko Mikasa, Honorary Vice-President of the Japanese Red Cross Society, called at the headquarters of the International Committee of the Red Cross on 14 March 1973.

In those areas where its delegates operate, the ICRC provides relief supplies which it buys on the spot or sends from Geneva. These supplies go to persons who have suffered as the result of local events, to detainees, or to National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies for their relief programmes.

Mr. Raymond Courvoisier, Special Assistant to the President, has been called upon to take office as Assistant to the Commissioner-General of the diplomatic conference for the reaffirmation and development of international humanitarian law in armed conflict.

From 17 to 30 May 1973, a doctor and a delegate from the ICRC were in Angola. From 21 to 25 May, they visited the detention camp of Sao Nicolau, the military hospital, the Luanda prison and the Luso prison. They saw, in all, some 1,900 people detained for political reasons and they were able to talk with them in private.

As already announced, the duties of the ICRC are henceforth divided between two distinct organs: the Assembly and the Executive Board. The latter is presided over by Mr. Roger Gallopin, who assumed his functions at the beginning of July.

On 21 March 1973, the ICRC issued the following press release: According to press reports on 14 March, the Delegation of the Republic of Vietnam in Paris, replying to a communication from the “Communauté vietnamienne” mentioning ill-treatment in Con Son Prison, said that “the South Vietnam detention camps, including Con Son, has been visited by international humanitarian organizations, including the International Red Cross”.

Whilst in Switzerland for the International Labour Conference, H.E. Mr. Habib Bourguiba, President of the Republic of Tunisia, on 25 June 1973 visited the headquarters of the ICRC, in response to the invitation which the President of the ICRC sent him last February.

Last month we mentioned that the ICRC had produced a series of ten posters on the Geneva Conventions and the Red Cross principles. Now the ICRC is offering National Societies and Ministries of Defence in all countries the chance to acquire a set of colour slides intended particularly to promote the dissemination of knowledge of the Geneva Conventions. Each set consists of twenty slides and brief comments in ten languages.

We have the honour to inform you that the International Committee of the Red Cross, on 20 September 1973 officially recognized the Singapore Red Cross Society.

Mr. Pierre Boissier was born in Geneva in 1920 and graduated in law at the University of Geneva. He joined the ICRC in 1946 and was delegate in Paris until 1963. From 1963 to 1966, he was legal adviser at ICRC headquarters in Geneva.

During the first half of 1973, the ICRC Relief Service despatched the following consignments:

To Africa, the ICRC sent medicaments and medical equipment totalling 55,365 Swiss francs to the National Societies of Chad, the Central African Republic, Dahomey, Ethiopia, the Gambia and Rwanda, and to the GRAE (Revolutionary Government of Angola in Exile). On behalf of the European Economic Community (EEC) it transmitted 120 tons of skimmed powdered milk (480,000 Swiss francs), in four consignments of 30 tons, to the National Societies of Ghana, Liberia, Mauritius and Senegal. Eight countries were the recipients of a Swiss Government donation consisting of 10 tons of unskimmed powdered milk (70,000 Swiss francs) for the Gambia, 75 tons of wheat flour (41,250 Swiss francs) for Ethiopia and a further 335 tons of wheat flour (184,250 Swiss francs) shared by the Gambia (50 tons), Kenya (75 tons), Liberia (30 tons), Mauritius (50 tons), Sierra Leone (30 tons), Swaziland (50 tons) and Tanzania (50 tons).

The ICRC has just published ten new posters in colour from photographs taken by its delegates on mission or by professional photographers. Six illustrate ICRC traditional activities in Vietnam, Bangladesh, India, the Middle East and on the Suez Canal. Four relate to the propagation of the principles and of the Geneva Conventions among youth and armed forces in Mali, Malawi, Upper Volta and Somalia.

To cover its operational expenditure, the International Committee of the Red Cross receives regular contributions from the Governments which signed the Geneva Conventions and from National Red Cross Societies, besides which there are donations and legacies. It also has the income yielded by the management of its funds.

The mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross to Chile, composed of six delegates including one doctor, pursued its visits in October to places of detention in that country. The ICRC delegates made several visits to the National Stadium in Santiago and also to Valparaiso. A first round of visits was made to the north and south of Chile, followed later by a further round of visits. Altogether, the ICRC delegates went to eighteen places of detention and saw more than ten thousand detainees. Everywhere they were able to talk with detainees of their choice, without witnesses.