MSF will be able to supply Sudanese refugees at one camp with two and a half liters of water per person per day, as of next week - about a sixth of the amount of water they need. The minimum amount of water that should be allocated in refugee emergencies is 15 liters per person per day, with seven liters as the minimum "survival allocation", according to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees. Those refugees who fled the fighting in Sudan with little but the clothes on their backs need more humanitarian organizations to step up and provide assistance. In this slideshow, featuring audio from the BBC's "Focus on Africa," MSF international communications coordinator Erwin van 't Land describes the situation.

DemocracyNow!:

The Coalition for the Homeless reports the number of people living in New York City homeless shelters has reached an all-time high of 43,000. Critics attribute the spike in homelessness to the Bloomberg administration’s alleged failure to help move homeless families into permanent affordable housing. Housing advocates say the problem was exacerbated by the city’s cancellation of the "Advantage" apartment rental subsidy, with as many as 8,000 former aid recipients now facing eviction. We get a report from Democracy Now!’s Chantal Berman, who interviewed several aid recipients who could soon lose their homes, and speak to Patrick Markee, senior policy analyst at Coalition for the Homeless in New York City

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Thousands of the poor across the Northeast are going to have a tough winter after the federal government cut home heating aid to states like New Hampshire and Massachusetts, you know, places where it can get bitter cold in the winter. Congress is considering making further cuts of more than $1 billion from last year's $4.7-billion Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. It had served nearly nine million households.

Via:

Mary Power is 92 and worried about surviving another frigid New England winter because deep cuts in federal home heating assistance benefits mean she probably can't afford enough heating oil to stay warm.

She lives in a drafty trailer in Boston's West Roxbury neighborhood and gets by on $11,148 a year in pension and Social Security benefits. Her heating aid help this year will drop from $1,035 to $685. With rising heating oil prices, it probably will cost her more than $3,000 for enough oil to keep warm unless she turns her thermostat down to 60 degrees, as she plans.

"I will just have to crawl into bed with the covers over me and stay there," said Power, a widow who worked as a cashier and waitress until she was 80. "I will do what I have to do."

Thousands of poor people across the Northeast are bracing for a difficult winter with substantially less home heating aid coming from the federal government.

As long as the upper 1 percent continue to receive their special tax breaks...