Welcome to the Worldwide Wednesday Wrap-Up, in which we consolidate the international Red Cross and Red Crescent news into one list of bite-sized links for you…

[The place names link to maps so that you can get a quick idea of the region.]

PHILIPPINES, TAIWAN, CHINA: Each area’s respective Red Cross societies are busy responding to Typhoon Morakot – manning evacuation centers, helping with search and rescue missions and providing relief items like rice, cooking oil, fast noodles, and bottled drinking water.

DARFUR: ICRC workers are assisting more than a half-million people with medical care, livestock vaccinations, seeds, tools and more.

UGANDA: 73,000 returnees who had been displaced by fighting are now receiving an acre’s worth of sorghum seed from the ICRC to restart their crops after a drought-induced food shortage.

GEORGIA: For the past year, the Georgian Red Cross has been providing support for some 30,000 people still displaced by the August 2008 hostilities between Georgia and Russia, and their work is not done.

AFGHANISTAN: With thousands of Red Crossers providing food assitance, medical supplies, limb-fitting, water sanitation, international humanitarian law promotion and detainee visits, this is one of the ICRC’s largest operations worldwide.

WORLDWIDE: Today is the 60th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions. CNN explains what they are and why they’re relevant. For an in-depth perspective, here is ICRC President Jakob Kellenberger’s full address.

GLOSSARY:
ICRC = International Committee of the Red Cross
IFRC = International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies