It will be recalled that in August and September 1963 on the occasion of the Red Cross Centenary, conferences and seminars took place in Switzerland. The International Review analyzed the importance and significance of their results. Subsequently, it drew attention to the publications issued by the Centenary Commission of the Red Cross in Switzerland, as a result of these meetings, namely, the World Conference of Educators, the International Nursing Study Centre, and the International Red Cross Meeting of First Aiders.

The same Commission has now published a further book devoted to the work of the “Seminar on the Activity of the Red Cross on Behalf of the Victims of Armed Conflicts”. We believe our readers will be interested in this publication of which we give some extracts below. Let us first recall the significance of this seminar.

The International Review has already given the text of the Resolutions passed at the XXth International Conference of the Red Cross last year. One of these (No. XXVIII) is of particular importance and we shall no doubt have reason to revert to it. It reads as follows:

The XXth International Conference of the Red Cross,

in its endeavours for the protection of the civilian population, reaffirms Resolution No. XVIII of the XVIIIth International Conference of the Red Cross (Toronto, 1952), which, in consideration of Resolution No. XXIV of the XVIIth International Conference of the Red Cross (Stockholm, 1948) requested Governments to agree, within the framework of general disarmament, to a plan for the international control of atomic energy which would ensure the prohibition of atomic weapons and the use of atomic energy solely for peaceful purposes,)

thanks the International Committee of the Red Cross for the initiative taken and the comprehensive work done by it in defining and further developing international humanitarian law in this sphere,

states that indiscriminate warfare constitutes a danger to the civilian population and the future of civilisation

The year 1964 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the American National Red Cross water safety program. In that year, 232 persons were awarded the coveted Certificate of Merit for saving lives through skills learned in Red Cross courses. The certificate they won, which is signed by the President of the United States and the Chairman of the American Red Cross, may be granted to people who have had water safety or first aid training. Both programs share in the overall purpose of the American organization's Safety Services: the saving of lives through public education in accident prevention and through courses that teach people how to respond when accidents do happen in the home, at work, on the highway, in the water, and elsewhere. Thousands of heroes and heroines, many unrecognized, have used their training to avert tragedies throughout the United States over the past 50 years.

ICRC medical teams ready to go into action. — With a view to alleviating the suffering caused by the prolongation of the war to the Vietnamese population both in the North and in the South, the International Committee of the Red Cross on December 27, 1965 offered the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of Hanoi and Saigon and the National Liberation Front (NLF) to send medical teams to the spot, each consisting of two doctors and one male nurse, all of Swiss nationality. These could, in accordance with the principles of the Red Cross, care for all wounded, sick and disabled, victims of the events.

The year 1966 marks the centenary of the birth of Romain Rolland which will be duly celebrated by various commemorative events. In this connection, the International Committee of the Red Cross would recall that the famous French writer, holder of the Nobel prize for literature, was at the beginning of the First World War a collaborator of the International Prisoners of War Agency, opened in Geneva in 1914. He worked voluntarily until July 1915 for the ICRC from which this Agency depended.