In accordance with the decision reached by the ICRC, the medical mission in North Yemen has come to a close. Although the needs of the population are still considerable in this region, the ICRC has found itself obliged to put an end to its action, already very much reduced since the beginning of the year, as local conditions no longer enable the safety of the teams on the ground to be assured.

In the March issue of International Review we gave information on the campaign which had been started in African schools in order to make widely known the sign of the Red Cross, through the medium of a textbook entitled The Red Cross and My Country. This wide campaign aroused both among youth and the authorities an increasing interest. It was stated in that issue that by the end of February the textbook, in French and English, had been distributed in schools in fourteen countries.

Because of the armed conflict which broke out in the middle of July between El Salvador and Honduras and in response to an appeal made by the Red Cross Society of the latter, the ICRC sent out Mr. S. Nessi, Delegate-General for Latin America, and Mr. E. Leemann, Delegate, to investigate on the spot. Their assignment was to make all possible arrangements with the authorities and National Societies to come to the aid of the victims and ensure the application of the Geneva Conventions, to which the two countries in conflict are signatories.

One of the most effective methods of making the Red Cross and the Geneva Conventions known is action at school level. It was for that reason that the ICRC undertook to distribute widely a textbook entitled The Red Cross and My Country (in English and French) which the International Review has mentioned in several previous issues. This large scale information campaign was started in Africa in the autumn of 1967. Since then many governments have agreed to the distribution of the manual in their schools. At present there are 230,000 copies—published and donated to the relevant authorities by the ICRC—in use in primary schools in twenty-one African States.

Mr. Marcel A. Naville, recently appointed President of the International Committee of the Red Cross, will assume office on 1st July 1969.

Anything concerning Henry Dunant is of interest to members of the Red Cross. We are therefore particularly grateful to Mr. Paul-Emile Schazmann, for many years conservator of manuscripts at the Swiss National Library, for having made available, for the centenary issue of our Review, unpublished writings by Dunant on facts which have so far received no attention. (Ed.)

It will be recalled that on 13 December 1961, Georges Olivet, a delegate of the International Committee, died on Red Cross service. This took place in Katanga when, in the middle of the fighting, he tried to save the lives of those undergoing intensive fire. In this he did not succeed, made a further attempt, and that was the end. He was accompanied by two volunteers of the Katanga Red Cross, Nicole Vroonen and Styts Smeding who suffered the same fate.

The ICRC had convened a Round Table conference on “The Red Cross as a Factor in World Peace”. This took place in Geneva from January 21-23, 1969, and was attended by various notabilities of the Red Cross world. Representatives of the League and the Henry-Dunant Institute also took part.

It is by now well known that on 1 August 1969 the ICRC submitted a plan to the authorities in Lagos and in the secessionist territory. On 15 August it received their agreement. Mr. Bignami, the ICRC President's personal representative in Lagos, kept in touch with the Nigerian Government whose reply reached Geneva somewhat later.