New Zealand is donating NZ$200,000 to provide relief supplies following the powerful cyclone which struck eastern India last week, Associate Foreign Minister Simon Upton announced today.

The donation will go towards the Red Cross appeal and comes from the Disaster Relief allocation in New Zealand’s Overseas Development Assistance programme.

Mr Upton said the cyclone was the worst to hit India’s Bay of Bengal coastline in three decades, with winds reaching up to 260kph.

"The cyclone has devastated the state of Orissa. Thousands have been killed; at least 1.5 million people have been left homeless, and up to another 10 million people have reportedly been affected in some way." Mr Upton said.

He said the United Nations had mobilised a team to assist UN agencies in India with damage assessment, and to coordinate international disaster relief.

ENDS

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Gordon Campbell: On the Sony cyber attack

Given the layers of meta-irony involved, the saga of the Sony cyber attack seemed at the outset more like a snarky European art film than a popcorn entry at the multiplex.

Yet now with (a) President Barack Obama weighing in on the side of artistic freedom and calling for the US to make a ‘proportionate response’quickly followed by (b) North Korea’s entire Internet service going down, and with both these events being followed by (c) Sony deciding to backtrack and release The Interview film that had made it a target for the dastardly North Koreans in the first place, then ay caramba…the whole world will now be watching how this affair pans out. More>>