Caritas Australia is calling on the pharmaceutical company Roche to refocus attention to developing paediatric HIV medications this World AIDS Day. In the twentieth Anniversary year of the Convention of the Rights of the Child Caritas has launched the international campaign “HAART for Children: greater Access to Paediatric HIV and TB testing and treatment.”

In response to recent newspaper reports, Caritas Australia would like to clarify its position in regards to relations with the company Cornucopia fundraising and to face-to-face fundraising.

Nearly three weeks after Typhoons, tsunamis, earthquakes and flooding ripped through our region, Caritas Australia is delivering assistance to more than 277,000 people across the affected area of the Asia- Pacific.

Samoa will hold a National Funeral today for victims of the 29 September tsunami, as multiple earthquakes rocked the Pacific region yesterday and brought the islands to a standstill. The quakes which could be felt in Western Samoa brought panic for a nation still reeling after the tsunami which killed 178 people in the Samoan Islands and Tonga.

Caritas’ Disaster Response teams in Nepal are preparing to help survivors after heavy rain triggered landslides in Accham and Dadeldhura districts. 45 people are confirmed dead with 12 people killed in the remote village of Mastamandu 775 km west of Kathmandu.

“We have never experience anything like this before. It is the worst flooding in 100 years,” said Caritas’ Mr Ambrose Christy from flood affected areas in India. Caritas Australia’s local partners in India have started to deliver aid as floods in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh open up a new front in the humanitarian crises besetting the Asia Pacific region. Caritas’ response is being coordinated with the Indian government who is reeling under the size of the disaster. An estimated 250 people have been killed and more than 2.5 million people are homeless.

Tarpaulins were delivered today by Caritas to villages yet to receive any direct aid six days after the earthquake that rocked Sumatra. Three hours from earthquake ravaged Padang Caritas delivered temporary shelter to 1600 families who weren’t even aware of the international efforts to assist them.

“When you see flatbed trucks coming into the town with dead bodies on the back… I mean I’ve seen this on television before in different parts of the world, but I never expected to see it here in my lifetime in Samoa”, says Peter Bendinelli, Chair of Caritas Samoa.

As teams from local Caritas agencies pulled the living and the dead from the rubble in Padang and delivered tents, tarpaulins and plastic sheeting to those who have lost their homes, concerns grow that the villages and towns around the major city are yet to receive assistance.

Today Caritas Australia pledged AUD$250,000 for its initial response to communities in crisis throughout the tsunami ravaged islands of Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, the typhoon stricken countries of the Philippines, Cambodia and Vietnam and the earthquake damaged island of Sumatra.

Caritas Australia’s local partner agencies Karina and CRS have sent teams specialising in Disaster Response to the heavily affected areas in West Sumatra after a devastating magnitude 7.6 earthquake hit Padang, West Sumatra on Wednesday afternoon.

“We were there within 5-6 hours after the tsunami struck delivering assistance. The devastation was astronomical, worse than anything I have ever seen”, said Peter Bendinelli Chair of Caritas Samoa.

A Caritas assessment team is on route to the worst affected areas of Western Samoa following an 8.3 earthquake 200km from the capital Apia. The consequent tsunami has hit Western and American Samoa early this morning.

Caritas Philippines is rushing aid to 50,000 people in some of the worse affected districts by tropical storm Ketsana. A representative from Caritas Australia’s partner, FCJ, who works in a Quezon City slum next to Manila’s largest garbage mountain said, “These people had so very, very little, now it’s gone and they have nothing”.

Caritas Australia’s local partners are commencing assessments after tropical storm Ketsana struck the main island of Luzon, triggering massive floods that have left over 100 dead and displaced 337,000 people.

Caritas Australia’s local partners are commencing assessments following the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake that struck, 115km (70 miles) south-west of Tasikmalaya off Western Java.

The inaugural World Humanitarian Day is dedicated to the memory of all aid workers who have lost their lives while bringing assistance to others, the majority of them from the communities they are trying to help.

The Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has been urged to upgrade Australia’s climate change policy, and take an emissions reduction target of 40% below 1990 levels by 2020 to negotiations in Copenhagen in December. Leading Australian aid agencies World Vision, Oxfam and Caritas made the call after the CPRS legislation was voted down this morning.

Caritas Australia is alarmed at the growing instability in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo following the murder of a Caritas aid worker employed by the French member organisation of the international Caritas confederation (Secours Catholique).

Caritas says it needs to raise US $12 million to provide for the basic needs for 400,000 people who have been driven from their homes in the Democratic Republic of Congo.