4 December 2008 — Some crossings into Gaza, including fuel pipelines, were opened today, allowing a limited amount of United Nations humanitarian supplies to reach the area’s 1.5 million inhabitants.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) delivered six truckloads of Jordanian-donated aid into Gaza, but the agency noted that an additional 10 trucks of oil and tinned meat were not allowed entrance into the territory.

UNRWA has stressed that it needs to send 15 trucks a day into Gaza just to maintain its basic operations, but it has only managed to deliver 37 trucks of emergency relief supplies over the last month, UN spokesperson Michele Montas told reporters in New York.

Glad they were so generous:

Colombo, December 2, 2008 – The United States Government will provide $100,000 for emergency relief to assist people affected by the flooding in the North and the East. This action comes in response to a request for assistance to USAID from the Sri Lankan Disaster Management Centre.

The US donation will be used for non-food relief items and targeted to victims in Jaffna and in the Vanni, where particularly serious flooding has occurred in recent days. UNICEF will administer the donation in coordination with local authorities. Ambassador Blake requested funds from the US government after Major General Hettiarachchi of the Disaster Management Centre asked for American assistance.

"The United States Government is eager to respond to this request for assistance to provide relief to the thousands of Sri Lankans who have been displaced and affected by this disaster," said Robert O. Blake, US Ambassador to Sri Lanka. "With more than 400,000 individuals in the North affected by terrible flooding, it is imperative that we respond quickly to this situation and work together to keep people safe."

In Jaffna, 10,000 families have been displaced to 135 camps because of the floods. More than 2000 houses have been destroyed and another 6,000 have been partially damaged by the flooding. In the Vanni area, more than 21,000 families have been affected, with 1000 permanent homes and 6,000 temporary shelters damaged.

I will say this... at least they gave something to help in relief efforts, which to be honest is more than I expected.

Iraq started flushing excess salinity out of about 6 million acres of farm land in order to make the land usable for farming again. The project began in the 1980s, but had to be put on hold due to the war with Iran and shortages of parts for the pumping stations in the 1990s. In addition to easing the food shortage, Water Resources Minister Abdul Latif Rasheed claimed that the project would also help to improve “the quality of water in Tigris and Euphrates rivers.”

According to a report from the International Medical Corps (IMC) from Wednesday (November-26), the Iraqi Ministry of Displacement and Migration will open a Returnee Assistance Center (RAC) in the Karkh district of Baghdad on Sunday (November-30) to provide returning refugees with immediate and long term assistance with registration, legal matters and ministerial capacity building. IMC reported close to 17,000 families, approximately 100,500 individuals, returning to Baghdad as of October. The increasing number of returning internally displaced and refugee families made the opening of this center necessary. (IMC, November-26)

Floods triggered by monsoon rains in Sri Lanka's north have left more than 71,00 people displaced and affected a total of some 370,000 people, the UN reported Tuesday (December 2). "The number of affected population has increased as some areas were previously inaccessible and new information is now being received," Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Elisabeth Byrs of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs as saying. The hardest hit area is the northern Jaffna peninsula, with some 62,000 displaced and 5,900 houses damaged.

On Thursday (November 27), officials had reported two soldiers killed and more than 230,000 displaced in the north due to the floods and a cyclone. According to the BBC, Sri Lanka's meteorology department has said that the rains were the worst since 1918.