It is common knowledge that the ICRC, in order to make the humanitarian Red Cross principles known throughout the world, has produced a school textbook entitled The Red Cross and My Country, followed by a Teacher's Manual. It has already been issued in fifteen languages. More than a million copies have been printed and it has been distributed in schools in fifty-five countries.

Subsequently, it appeared necessary to publish also a handbook for officers and other ranks of the armed forces. It was entitled the Soldier's Manual. Its inspiration was the same as that underlying the school textbook. However, while the latter is designed to inculcate in schoolchildren, by means of short illustrated texts, the principles of the Red Cross and of humanitarian law, the Soldier's Manual summarizes the rules of the Geneva Conventions which should be applied in all circumstances when armed conflict breaks out.

Mr. Frédéric Siordet recently celebrated his seventieth birthday. On that occasion the International Committee, of which he is an honorary member, awarded him its Silver Medal as a testimony of profound gratitude. It was presented to him on 9 December 1970 at an informal ceremony attended by his colleagues.

In plenary session on 6 May 1971, the International Committee of the Red Cross welcomed Mr. Pierre Micheli, whom it had nominated as a member at a previous plenary session.

In its desire to spread as much as possible knowledge of the Geneva Conventions among nursing personnel, the ICRC has published a booklet entitled Rights and Duties of Nurses under the Geneva Conventions of August 12, 1949. It is available in a pocketsize edition, bound in a plastic cover, and has been reprinted several times since it came out in July 1969. Already 17,345 copies have been sold: 3,421 in French, 7,236 in German, 3,980 in English, and 2,708 in Spanish.

The ICRC Relief Service despatched several consignments recently: a mobile clinic worth 30,000 francs was donated to the Ecuadorean Red Cross, and one ton of powdered milk was handed over to the Trinidad and Tobago National Society.

The ICRC Delegate-General for Latin America, Mr. Serge Nessi, spent some two months in that part of the world for contacts with governmental authorities and National Red Cross Society leaders, and also to open officially the new ICRC regional delegation in Caracas.

From 25 June to 2 July, Mr. Nessi was in Rio de Janeiro, where he met the new Interventor of the Brazilian Red Cross, Marshal Salvador Uchoa Cavalcanti, and Mr. Tom Sloper, in charge of the National Society's foreign relations. In Brasilia he had talks with the President of the Fundação Nacional dos Indios (FUNAI), General Bandeira de Mello, concerning the resumption of medical work by the Red Cross in the Amazon.

As we mentioned in a previous issue, General Yahya Khan, President of Pakistan, in an interview with Mr. V. Umbricht, member of the International Committee, on 26 July, gave his agreement to humanitarian action by the ICRC. The ICRC decided to send to East Pakistan Dr. Otto Lehner, Head of Delegation, and Mr. Nicolas Vecsey, Assistant Head of the Central Tracing Agency. They left Geneva on 19 August, their mission being particularly to organize, in co-operation with the Pakistan Red Cross, a service to trace the missing and to re-unite families.

The Neutral Commission appointed by the ICRC to decide on applications by Polish victims of pseudo-medical experiments in Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War, met on 30 April, 1 May and 4 May 1971 at ICRC headquarters in Geneva. It consisted of Mr. W. Lenoir, President, a judge of the Geneva Court of Justice, Dr. S. Mutrux, assistant director of the Bel-Air psychiatric clinic in Geneva, and Dr. P. Magnenat, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and assistant at the Nestlé Hospital university clinic at Lausanne.

As in past years, the President of the International Committee of the Red Cross sent a message, transmitted on radio and television in many countries, in French, English, German, Spanish and Italian:

Civilian populations reduced to famine, women and children buried beneath the ruins of their bombed homes, burnt-out ambulances, prisoners and detainees deprived of communication with their families and subjected to intimidation and torture, statesmen and diplomats kidnapped or assassinated, aircraft hijacked and their passengers held as hostages, unbridled violence and brutal repression; such was the horror of war during the year which is now drawing to a close.

On 26 August 1970 the International Committee addressed to National Societies a letter drawing attention to the importance of constantly expanding the dissemination of knowledge concerning the Geneva Conventions. Subsequently, in January of the present year, the International Committee reverted to the matter in a further letter, which contained a summary of the replies received from various National Societies.

International Review has on several occasions referred to the generous participation of the European Economic Community (EEC) in the humanitarian action of the Red Cross. It will be recalled that, under an initial EEC-ICRC agreement signed on 14 May 1969, the International Committee received various cereal products for its assistance programme in aid of war victims.

This was followed by other agreements. On 25 March 1970, the EEC made a further generous donation in the form of agricultural surpluses and other goods designed to give humanitarian aid to those countries of the Third World stricken by armed conflicts or famine.