It will be recalled that, with the agreement of the Brazilian Ministry of the Interior and in close collaboration with the League of Red Cross Societies and the Brazilian Red Cross, the ICRC sent a team to Brazil in May 1970 to study the situation and needs of the Amazonian Indians. The team was led by Mr. S. Nessi, ICRC Delegate-General for Latin America, and comprised three doctors, B. Aakerren, S. Bakker and R. Habersang (who were loaned to the International Red Cross by the West German, Dutch and Swedish Red Cross Societies, which agreed also to meet the cost of the expedition) and a Swiss ethnologist, Mr. R. Fürst. They were joined in Rio de Janeiro by Dr. A. Borges dos Santos, a Brazilian Red Cross doctor. As they penetrated deep into the country, we published information on their journey, on the aid that they gave and on the medical centres that they set up.

In its issue of April 1971, International Review printed an account of the Conference of Red Cross experts convened by the ICRC that had taken place at The Hague, in co-operation with the Netherlands Red Cross, from 1 to 6 March 1971. A report on its work was submitted to the Conference of Government Experts on the Reaffirmation and Development of International Humanitarian Law, it, too, convened by the ICRC, which opened in Geneva on 24 May 1971.

In response to an invitation from the American National Red Cross, Mr. Marcel A. Naville, President of the ICRC, accompanied by senior ICRC officials, went to the United States from 17 to 24 April 1971.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has nominated Mr. Jean Pictet and Mr. Harald Huber to be Vice-Presidents for 1971 and 1972 as from 1 July 1971.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has elected Mr. Max Petitpierre and Mr. Victor Umbricht to be members of the Presidential Council for 1971 and 1972 as from 1 July 1971; they will sit with the President and the two Vice-Presidents mentioned above, who are ex-officio members of the Council.

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.

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.

In its preceding issue, International Review had announced, after publishing the text of two letters in which the ICRC drew the attention of National Societies to the importance of an ever-wider diffusion of the Geneva Conventions, that a further letter would be printed relative to University courses on international humanitarian law. This runs as follows:

In its circular sent in January 1971, the International Committee of the Red Cross had the honour to inform you, in a provisional account, of the action undertaken by some thirty National Societies in the important realm of the dissemination of knowledge on the Geneva Conventions, consistent with resolution IX adopted by the XXIst International Conference of the Red Cross at Istanbul.

In its issue of March 1971, the International Review printed an article describing the two principal tasks pursued today by the Central Tracing Agency in Geneva: to maintain links between prisoners and their families, and to trace persons who have disappeared or have been separated from each other as a consequence of various events (international conflicts, civil wars, internal disturbances).

Each year, 8 May is celebrated as International Red Cross, Red Crescent and Red Lion and Sun Day. In 1971, it was celebrated with great verve and the heads of international Red Cross institutions issued a message in which they explained the significance of the theme chosen:

Mr. Marcel A. Naville, President of the ICRC:

In the world we live in, the state of war is a permanent feature. One conflict ends, another breaks out. Civil wars, disturbances, internal tension can, sometimes in a few hours, crush thousands of people under the heel of oppression, captivity and occupation. What words, therefore, could better describe the mission of the International Committee of the Red Cross, whose specific field of action is war, than the theme chosen to celebrate 8 May this year: “Red Cross Working Round the Clock” ?