At the twentieth meeting of jurists of the German Red Cross in the Federal Republic of Germany, held in Münster last September, the President of the Swiss Red Cross, Professor Hans Haug, spoke on the International Red Cross. Extensive extracts from his paper are given below, as we feel that the problems discussed are of lively and topical interest for all sections of the Red Cross movement.

In recent years, public opinion throughout the world has been increasingly disturbed by a problem which also seems to be on the increase—that of torture. The experience of the ICRC has led to the conviction that the concern is justified and that the subject is an exceedingly grave one. Repeated and even systematic resort to torture, whether on orders from or with the tacit approval of the authorities, whether by violence or by psychological or chemical means, is a cancer which seems to be spreading, threatening the body of our civilization. Of all weapons, torture is probably the most cruel and the most harmful. Its cruelty needs no proof; the injury it does results not only from what it does to the victim, who is often forced to violate his conscience and betray his loved ones, but also to the torturers themselves and to their superiors, and finally to the whole of the country in which torture is practiced.

When the Rhodesia Conference opened in Geneva on 28 October, the ICRC took the opportunity to contact all the parties represented. It had talks with the nationalist leaders—Mr. R. Mugabe, Mgr. Muzorewa, Mr. J. Nkomo and the Rev. Sithole—and with the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, Mr. I. Smith, his Minister of Justice, Mr. H. Squires, and with the chairman of the Conference, Mr. I. Richard, ambassador and permanent representative of the United Kingdom to the UN.

As announced in our issue of September 1975, Mr. Roger Gallopin's mandate as President of the Executive Council will terminate on 31 December this year.

In a letter of 4 July to the Swiss Federal Council, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Socialist Republic of Viet Nam stated that, with the same reservations as the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam and the Republic of South Viet Nam, his country would continue to participate in the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 for the protection of war victims.

The Arabic version of Red Cross Principles has just been issued by the ICRC. This work, which first appeared in French in 1955 and has also been translated into English, German, Japanese and Spanish, is of fundamental importance and should, as Max Huber wrote in his preface to the French edition, be not only read but meditated upon. The author, Mr. Jean Pictet, is Vice-President of the ICRC, Director of the Henry Dunant Institute and Associate Professor at the University of Geneva.

In our January 1976 issue, we announced the publication of an index to the French edition of International Review covering the years 1962 to 1974. It gives us pleasure to inform our English-speaking readers that the analytical index to the English edition is now available.