Architecture for Humanity is responding to Typhoon Ketsana-Ondoy, which has affected the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia. Millions of people have been displaced, with the threat of more typhoons on their way possibly affecting even more people. We are raising funds for transitional and permanent reconstruction of areas affected. Please note this funding will be focused on longer-term recovery rather than emergency relief. + full entry...

Palestinians are busy restoring the bomb-damaged tunnels, and consumer goods are starting to flow into Gaza again. Al Jazeera's Jeremy Young describes the process of filming inside them. aljazeera | tunnel diggers

Food prices are causing misery and strife around the world. Radical solutions are needed. Pictures of hunger usually show passive eyes and swollen bellies. The harvest fails because of war or strife; the onset of crisis is sudden and localised. Its burden falls on those already at the margin. Today's pictures are different. A wave of food-price inflation is moving through the world, leaving riots and shaken governments in its wake. The Economist, related LiveScience

Donated by designers and artists around the globe, posters sold by the So-Cal Fire Poster Project raise funds for victims of the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Diego Counties. All proceeds will be given to the Salvation Army, for the 2007 California Wildfire fund. + full entry...

A strong earthquake with a 7.0 magnitude has hit Indonesia's West Java island. reuters

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An earthquake that shook the area around the ancient royal city of Yogyakarta on Saturday killed more than 2,700. Read | CNN

As the gas price nears and sometimes exceeds $4 a gallon, the city of Los Angeles is opening more bike lanes, companies are holding cycling seminars and federal officials are pushing for tax incentives.lat

New Orleans' levee system repairs are processing with too much local soil material which does not contain enough clay to make it resistant to future storms. Will other states in the union respond to this clay deficiency? Or will New Orleans melt into the sea eventual? NYT

The BIG hotel room kick out of New Orleans hurricane victims begs the question where are all the alternative housing units? DemNow

A report issued by the City of New Orleans this week would make it tougher for some homeowners to start over. CSM

Architectural Record, in partnership with the Tulane School of Architecture, has announced two International design competions to propose new housing for New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Google Zeitgeist's data reveals that the most popular natural disaster for 2005 was the Tsunami, followed by Hurricane Rita and with poor old Katrina being the third most interesting.

The Sumatra earthquake barely registered...

Mountains of post-Katrina toxic waste - "an unprecedented onslaught of debris" - now urgently demand a clean-up: but is anyone willing to commit? NYT.

you know what that means...yes...Katrina and NOLA. A reading and commentary on the state of things in a city that hangs in the balance. Nancy Levinson, Pixel Points + full entry...

"The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), one of the nation's largest environmental groups, and several local Louisiana environmental groups said that heavy metals, petroleum components and pesticides in the dusty residue left behind by Hurricane Katrina's floodwaters pose such a risk that families with children shouldn't return until it is cleaned up."

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