“THERE is no more fascinating surface on earth than that of the human face,” said German philosopher Georg Christoph Lichtenberg. And it is faces — whether expressing suffering, hope, joy or some other, indecipherable emotion — that feature prominently in these pages.

There are the faces of first-aiders intent on bringing succour to the victims of the 34-day war in Lebanon and Israel and its trail of death, blood and tears. Their faces reflect the solidarity that inspired a sustained Movement action involving many National Societies, including those of the Gulf states, which retain ancestral ties with the Land of the Cedars.

There are the faces of the people of Darfur, etched with a deep and prolonged anxiety, the faces of determined women volunteers in Pakistan, the faces of people in the Mapuche indigenous communities in Chile and the faces of young volunteers engaged in reaching their peers to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS. Whatever their individual stories, these faces tell a universal tale of human suffering and the humanitarian impulse to go to the aid of those who suffer.