In the badly-hit region of Charsadda in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where millions of lives have been devastated by the unprecedented floods, Amir Khan met with children and families who are now forced to live in tented camps or public buildings.

Amir Khan said: “You don’t realise the reality of this disaster until you’re here talking to people who have been left with nothing. It’s really upsetting to see the extent of the devastation – but the people I’m meeting are extremely tough and are finding ways to survive against the odds. They need our help as they start rebuilding their lives.”

At a college which is now housing hundreds of families, Amir Khan discovered the importance of clean water for people who risk disease from contaminated water or unsanitary living conditions.

Amir Khan said: “When you’re living in a tent or a school, the importance of clean drinking water cannot be underestimated. Oxfam is providing people affected with clean water, which is crucial if they are to avoid disease.

“I saw myself that money is reaching people who really need it but they will need help for some time to come. I plan to dedicate my next fight to the victims of the Pakistan flood.”

More than 18 million people have now been affected by the floods, more than the Indian Ocean tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake and the Haiti earthquake combined. 5 million have been left homeless after their homes were washed away by the waters. And while the waters have largely receded in the north of the country, towns and villages across the south are still being threatened by fresh flooding.

This is Amir Khan’s second visit to Pakistan with Oxfam – the boxer, whose family is from Pakistan, travelled there in 2006 following the South Asia earthquake.

Oxfam and partners are mounting a response in three provinces Pakistan – Khyber Pakhtoonkkhwa (formerly NWFP), Sindh and Punjab. Oxfam is now reaching 600,000 people in Pakistan and has launched a rapid relief effort in districts throughout KPK, Punjab and Sindh, providing people with clean water and food, sanitation kits and hygiene supplies. We plan to scale up our response to reach 1.1 million people and will soon be starting activities to assist people recover their livelihoods.

Support Oxfam by donating regularly with a donation from your pay.

WCRF scientists have estimated that about 4,600 bowel cancer cases could be prevented simply if people in the UK did more brisk walking and other forms of moderate activity, which is activity that makes your heart beat a bit faster and makes you breathe more deeply. And about 5,500 breast cancer cases could be prevented in the same way.

Physical activity also reduces risk of endometrial cancer (cancer of the womb lining) and as well as preventing cancer in its own right, people who are regularly active are less likely to be overweight, which is an important cancer risk factor. This is why WCRF recommends being physically active for at least half an hour a day.

Dr Rachel Thompson, Deputy Head of Science for WCRF, said: “There is now very strong evidence that being physically active is important for cancer prevention. Even relatively modest increases in activity levels could prevent thousands of cancer cases in the UK every year.

“These figures also show you do not have to go to the gym every day to benefit. You can reduce your cancer risk just by making small changes and this is highlighted by the fact that so many cancer cases could be prevented through something as simple as brisk walking.

“By taking up walking as a hobby or even walking to the shops instead of taking the bus or car, people can make a real difference to their health.

“But while there is strong scientific evidence that being physically active is important for cancer prevention, just over a third of people are aware of the link. So there is still a lot of work to do in raising awareness.”

WCRF has launched its Walking Together campaign to raise awareness of the important role moderate physical activity, including walking, has for cancer prevention.

The campaign involves people supporting WCRF by organising walks with their family and friends. As well as raising funds to help WCRF continue its cancer prevention work, the campaign aims to encourage people to get into the kind of habits that can reduce their cancer risk.

Paul Fretwell, Head of Fundraising for WCRF, said: “We are trying to promote the fact that wherever you live in the UK, you are never that far away from somewhere nice to walk.

“As well as raising money, this campaign is promoting the importance of physical activity for cancer prevention and reminding people about how enjoyable walking can be.

“We hope that Walking Together encourages people to get into the habit of brisk walking, both as a hobby but also as part of their daily lives.”

 Support the World Cancer Research Fund with a donation from your pay.

The Sex Education Show presenter, Anna Richardson, recently adopted two kittens from The Mayhew, who had arrived after they were found abandoned at the bottom of someone’s garden.

Anna said: “It is such a sad situation that The Mayhew struggles to take in and house all these tiny kittens who are literally arriving in droves at the door of the rescue centre. All these unwanted kittens wouldn’t be fighting for survival if all cat owners took their pets to be neutered, after all you can give condoms to kids but not to kitties.”

The Mayhew is crammed full with cats and kittens and we are struggling to rehome them quickly enough before more arrive.

We are only taking in ‘emergency cases’ and callers to the Home wanting to give up their animals are having to be added to our waiting list. But that doesn’t stop numerous others being dumped on our doorstep in boxes, bags and bins. We are completely full.

Over the course of just one day last week, we had 18 arrivals, 13 of these were kittens and seven of these kittens were under five days old.

If you can help us in any way it would be hugely appreciated at this very difficult time, Thank you.

Support the Mayhew through your pay by supporting Assisi Animal Charities Foundation.

As few as 400 Amur Tigers survive in the native Korean Pine forests of the Russian Far East and north-east China, where the pine nuts are an essential food source for Tiger prey species. However, rising global demand for the pine has led to a massive increase in logging, much of it carried out illegally, in Russia’s remaining temperate forests.

To help regulate the logging, Russia has listed the Korean Pine in Appendix III of CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora).The listing means exports of Korean Pine timber from Russia will now need CITES permits, which will make it harder for the illegal timber trade to carry on.

“The fate of the Amur Tiger is inextricably linked to the safeguarding of the Korean Pine,” said Pauline Verheij, joint TRAFFIC and WWF Tiger Trade Programme Manager. “Russia is putting in place the kind of measures that will help with the commitment by Tiger range countries to double numbers of wild Tigers by 2020.”

The ruling comes at a key point for tiger conservation. Earlier this month, the 13 countries with surviving Tiger populations drafted a Declaration on Tiger Conservation , which would commit them to doubling the number of remaining wild tigers by 2022. It is anticipated that the Declaration will be formally signed at a Heads of Government summit in Russia later this year.

“TRAFFIC and WWF Russia warmly welcome the measures to regulate the trade in Korean Pine timber, which is good news for the local people whose livelihoods depend on the trade in Korean Pine nuts and for Amur Tigers, which live where these trees grow,” said Alexey Vaisman, Senior Programme Officer with TRAFFIC Europe-Russia. “The new measures will need to be backed up with appropriate enforcement action.”

The new measures will also benefit the legal pine nut trade in the region which WWF and TRAFFIC have been promoting as a means of providing legal and sustainable income.

“We hope the listing in CITES will finally help break the system of illegal logging of Korean Pines and help the survival of trade in alternative, sustainable forestry products from the region,” said Evgeny Lepeshkin, Forestry Projects Co-ordinator with the Amur branch of WWF Russia.

Please support the work of WWF with a donation from your pay.

The Children’s Society is proud to have worked in Partington for exactly 30 years (it opened August 1980). The Unity Project has offered children, young people and their families access to a wide range of formal and informal opportunities to spend time having fun and getting to know their peers in their own community. The project up to its closure at the end of August 2010, offered services based around community play, youth work, and parenting and family support programmes. We do this by focusing on positives, such as enhancing the skills of those we work with, thereby offering children and young people a chance for a better future.

Over the last 30 years, the project has carried out a huge and varied range of fantastic work. It started in a house on the estate, and engaged in a range of activities including: welfare advice; play schemes; LETS (Local Exchange Trading Schemes); work with young people with additional needs and challenging behaviour; work with YOIs (Young Offenders Institutes); graffiti projects; music production projects; work with parents of adolescent young people; guns and gangs work; a community crèche; consultations and the development of relationships with MPS (e.g. Beverley Hughes).

Rob Jackson, Assistant Director, The Children’s Society, said: “The Children’s Society very much wanted to remain in Partington to continue the good work that we have been doing, specifically supporting children and young people. Over the years so many people in the local community have given time and energy to volunteer and participate in activities at the centre on Oak Road. There have been great successes and the commitment of the staff team at the project has been first-class. However, the project needs to run on a sound financial footing and this has not been possible in the present economic climate.”

The building in Oak Road will be handed back to the Partington Town Council for further use by the local community. The Children’s Society also leaves the legacy of the high quality production equipment, computers and sports apparatus bought using a variety of funding schemes over several years. Since these items were bought for the children and young people of Partington and Trafford, it was decided that they should stay and continue to be used by these young people and we have therefore decided to hand it over to the Local Council. We hope that this equipment, worth several thousand pounds, will be of continuing benefit to the young people in the community who we have served for such a long period of time.

Support The Children’s Society with a regular donation from your pay, so that other services are not effected in the future.

CLIC Sargent funds frontline staff including Paediatric Oncology Outreach Nurses (POONs), social workers and other specialists at hospitals across the UK, so we know from first-hand experience just how vital a role they play in caring for and supporting children and young people with cancer.

Specialist cancer nurses care for children on the ward and also make home visits to carry out procedures such as blood tests and sometimes chemotherapy, which means children get to spend as much time at home as possible. We know that spending more time at home helps children keep up with their everyday lives, continue with their education, and go on to live their life to the full.

We also know that this specialist care can save the NHS and the wider economy money – as well as fewer hospital stays, specialist skills mean these nurses can readily identify and support patient’s needs, potentially helping the child back into education and enabling parents to return to work sooner.

That’s why we want every child or young person with cancer to be assigned a specialist nurse who can coordinate clinical, emotional and social care for children and young people with cancer and help reduce the impact on their lives. It’s vital the NHS supports frontline staff to ensure that children and young people with cancer get the care they need.

Support CLIC Sargent with a donation from your pay

The death of these much-loved bears has devastated BRC and WSPA staff and we know it will be equally upsetting for our supporters.

Suzi Morris, WSPA UK Director said: “I hope it is of some comfort to know that it was the generosity of WSPA supporters that allowed the final chapter of these bears’ lives to be one of peace and tranquillity, safe from the violence and fear of bear baiting.”

Initially it was feared that all of the 23 bears at Kund Park had been lost but Babu, Maylu and Sohrab were found alive in the floodwaters.

In difficult circumstances, BRC staff transported them to the near-complete, new sanctuary at Balkasar.  It is now more urgent than ever that building work on the Balkasar sanctuary is finished and the team at BRC are working flat out to achieve this. 

Over the past few weeks the world has watched as heavy monsoons have caused the worst floods in Pakistan for 80 years. At the time of writing, up to 14 million people have been affected by the floods and an estimated 1,600 have lost their lives.

The damage to the Kund Park sanctuary is so severe that is seems unlikely that it can be rebuilt in the near future, perhaps at all.

Thanks to WSPA supporters, the new Balkasar sanctuary is due to be completed in October and will have the capacity to provide a home for Babu, Maylu and Sohrab and for the remaining bears still being used to fight in bear baiting arenas. 

The Kund Park sanctuary is located between the Indus and Kabul Rivers in North-West Frontier Province, the epicentre of the recent floods.

A flood warning system was in place but the dramatic rise in floodwaters – reaching 60ft above river level – did not give BRC staff enough time to remove the bears from danger. The team did all they could to try to secure the safety of the bears by moving them to higher ground, staying at the sanctuary for as long as possible before they had to evacuate for their own personal safety.

As soon as the floodwaters receded, Fakhar and his team worked around the clock to search for the bears. Three bears were found alive but after days of searching, they had to face the devastating realisation that 20 of their beloved bears were confirmed dead. 

WSPA is extremely impressed by the fortitude of BRC staff and their response to such a devastating tragedy. Many of the local staff were personally affected, some losing their homes to the floods, but this did not stop their dedication to securing the safety of the bears they have spent years caring for.

Amongst the drowned bears were names that WSPA supporters will know well.

• Star: rescued only months earlier from the horrors of bear baiting, thanks to BRC and the wonderful response of WSPA supporters to a recent appeal. 
• Lailah: saved from bear baiting in 2008 and featured in a WSPA appeal.
•  Rustam: liberated by Victor Watkins, WSPA’s bear expert, in 2001 and one of the oldest bears at the Kund Park sanctuary. 
• Dewa: confiscated from poachers in 2009 aged just five months old, was taken to the Kund Park sanctuary along with his brother, Babu, who was saved from the floods.

The other two lucky survivors are three year old Maylu was rescued in 2006, saved from the black market bear trade. Sohrab is a two year old Asiatic black bear who had been living peacefully at the Kund Park sanctuary since 2007.

Support the ongoing work of WSPA with a donation from your pay.

As floodwaters further inundate the low-lying southern provinces of the Punjab and Sindh, and an increasing number of people require assistance, the team of four will be working to speed up the delivery of aid into the worst-hit areas.

Flying out last night, the team is heading to the devastated province of Sindh in southern Pakistan. Logistics specialists from other Red Cross National Societies have been in the country since soon after the disaster began.

 “There are massive logistical challenges in Pakistan which are holding us back from reaching all the people in need. At the moment there are relief items ready to go but the challenge is getting them to places where roads, rail and all normal transport have been wiped out,” said Richard North, logistics manager at the British Red Cross.

“The British Red Cross team will be helping establish routes to get aid to flood victims as quickly as possible, in any way we can. We know from previous disasters that this often means using trucks, boats and even helicopters. But this is only half the battle. Once those routes in are up and running, it is vital aid continues to arrive in country in sufficient quantities to meet the vast needs.” 

Team member Kenny Hamilton said: “Having seen the devastation of Pakistan on the news, and knowing that there are still people who haven’t been reached, there is a huge role for logistics teams on the ground. As soon as we arrive we will be doing everything we can to get aid to those in need as quickly as possible.”

Support the work of the British Red Cross with a donation from your pay.

As well as winning £250 for the charity of his choice, Brian also chose to raffle the football shirt for Macmillan too!  Thank you Brian, what a lovely chap you are!

Please look out for our next online quiz later in the year.

Not only is the use of this new method more humane, it also provides a more accurate assessment of the potential irritancy of a substance to human skin.

A new guideline from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) allows the new test using artificial human skin to establish if a chemical may cause skin irritation*.The new test, which does not involve any testing on animals, replaces one used since the 1940s where chemicals are tested by applying them to rabbits’ shaved backs.

RSPCA senior scientist Barry Phillips said: “This is a milestone in the replacement of animal tests with humane alternatives. However, there are still some loopholes which allow regulatory authorities to insist on animal tests for skin irritancy, and these must be closed.

“It has taken more than 25 years of effort by scientists and animal protection groups to develop and gain acceptance for this new method. Much of this time was taken up with proving that the new test works and with persuading regulators and the OECD to accept it.

“This highlights how many obstacles have to be overcome to replace animal tests with humane alternatives, and illustrates how much resistance to change there is in the area of safety testing. The RSPCA will continue to lobby for the replacement of animals in all areas of research and testing.”

More than 5,000 chemical irritancy tests were carried out on rabbits annually in the late 1990s. This reduced to 455 by 2009. This was because of an increased use of non-animal tests, but until now rabbits have continued to be used to check chemicals that appear to be non-irritating during non-animal tests.

Support the RSPCA with a donation from your pay