The International Committee of the Red Cross was one of the recipients of the 1978 Human Rights Prize, which the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Mr. Kurt Waldheim, presented to the President of the ICRC, Mr. Alexander Hay, in New York on 11 December before the United Nations General Assembly, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights. The prize was awarded to the ICRC for its work in promoting observance of human rights.

At the end of March 1978, the ICRC in a private ceremony took leave of Mr. Claude Pilloud who had reached the age limit and was leaving the service of the ICRC after a fruitful career lasting nearly forty years. On behalf of the ICRC, its President, Mr. A. Hay, thanked Mr. Pilloud for the eminent services he had rendered to the whole of the Red Cross movement.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Djibouti sent a letter dated 5 January 1978 which reached the Swiss Federal Council on 26 January 1978, and in which he declared that his State considered itself bound by the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and Sick in Armed Forces in the Field of August 12, 1949, by virtue of its prior ratification by France.

The Torstein Dale Prize, founded by the Norwegian Red Cross in 1975 in memory of its former President, for persons who have made a conspicuous contribution to the humanitarian work and fundamental ideas of the Red Cross, was awarded to Mr. Jean Pictet, Vice-President of the ICRC and Director of the Henry Dunant Institute. The distinction, a bronze dove, was presented to Mr. Pictet by the Norwegian Red Cross President, Mr. Hans Hoegh, at a ceremony which took place last May in Oslo.

The Standing Commission of the International Red Cross met on 5 May 1978 in Geneva with Sir Evelyn Shuckburgh in the chair, to decide, in accordance with the mandate given to it in October 1977 by the Twenty-third International Red Cross Conference, on the place where the next International Conference will be held.

The ICRC recently sent two missions to southern Africa, as part of its campaign to make its activities better known and to promote humanitarian principles in the regions where conflicts have been taking place.

During the first two months of the year ICRC activities in Southern Africa have developed substantially.

In December 1977, the ICRC appealed for funds to cover its relief programmes for the first four months of the year and its operating expenses until the end of June 1978. Initially for 3.1 million Swiss francs, the amount appealed for was increased by 1 million francs to meet the cost of several medical projects in Mozambique and of operations by two medical teams in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.

Friends of the ICRC will be sad to learn that Dr. Roland Marti, former ICRC Chief Medical Officer, died in Geneva on 9 November.

Dr. Marti joined the ICRC in 1936 and devoted his whole career to helping suffering humanity. After the Spanish Civil War, during which he worked in extremely difficult conditions, he went to Germany, to head the ICRC delegation in Berlin. He was appointed head of the Medical Division in 1946 and later head of the Relief Division, and played an important role in all the major ICRC programmes of action after the Second World War, particularly in the Middle East and in Asia.

In the space of two months, the ICRC has lost four members of its delegations, who died while carrying out their humanitarian mission. Three were Swiss and one was African. They were all prompted by that spirit of devotion and sacrifice which impels some people to help their neighbour in distress. They were highly conscious of the responsibility with which they were entrusted and in facing danger they met their deaths, giving a wonderful example of human brotherhood.

In March and April, ICRC delegates in Thailand continued their visits to police posts along the border in the north, north-east, south and south-east of Thailand. They visited 102 police posts and six transit camps and saw 5,086 detainees. Of these, 4,888 had entered Thailand illegally. In May, these visits were pursued further, including 18 police posts and four transit camps, which contained, among all the detainees held, 387 persons who had entered the country illegally. The delegates also visited three detention centres in Bangkok, where they saw 31 detainees.

On 7 November, the International Committee of the Red Cross launched an appeal for 15 million Swiss francs. This sum is required for the six-month financing of the humanitarian project to meet the needs resulting from the various conflicts at present causing havoc in Africa.