We have the honour to inform you that the International Committee of the Red Cross has officially recognized the Lesotho Red Cross Society with effect from 7 September 1971.

The new Society formally applied for recognition by the International Committee on 11 March 1971. Its request was supported by various documents including a copy of its Statutes and of the Act of 9 November 1967, a report on its activities and a letter containing a statement of adherence to the Statutes of the International Red Cross, received on 7 September 1971.

Having expressed the wish to establish closer contacts with the Red Cross Society of China, the President of the ICRC was invited by that National Society to go to China in September. Mr. Naville, accompanied by the Presidential Attaché, Mr. Michel Barde, left Geneva for Peking on 13 September. He was welcomed in the Chinese capital by leaders of the Red Cross Society of China, Mr. Kuo King-go, Mr. Wang Min, Mr. Li Go-hua, Mr. Shang Shenggan, Mrs. Lian Si-yi and Mrs. Lian Mo.

At the end of September, the Swiss Confederation made available to the International Committee of the Red Cross the sum of 500,000 Swiss francs for its work in East Pakistan.

The ICRC operations in East Pakistan are conducted by three delegates and are being developed mainly for the tracing of missing persons, for reuniting dispersed families, forwarding family news and visiting detainees.

In its issue of October 1970, the International Review stated that 128 States were parties to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. This number has now risen to 129. The ICRC has recently been informed by the Federal Political Department in Berne that the Swiss authorities received, on 9 August 1971, a letter from the Fijian Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs stating that Fiji considered itself bound to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, under the earlier ratification by the United Kingdom.

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.

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.

On several occasions, we have published information about the relief operation undertaken by the ICRC in Jordan, with the cooperation of the League, National Societies, institutions and governments, during the last few months of 1970. But the richly illustrated Final Report which the International Committee is now publishing gives a complete picture of the action, and we think it worth while to reproduce the text, especially as it is followed by tables from which our readers will see who were the generous donors who participated in the action and the extent of the contributions received and forwarded.

The Press and Information Division of the ICRC issued, in September 1971, the first number of a profusely illustrated periodical, under the title Aspects. It is primarily intended for circulation among the Swiss people, who support extensively the ICRC by their donations, and will appear twice yearly, in French and German.