CONTENTS
1. HIGHILIGHTS
2. CLUSTER ACTIVITIES UPDATES
3. AIR TRANSPORT

1. HIGHLIGHTS

• A Logistics Cluster meeting was held today 11th May in Yangoon.
• First consolidated “bilateral and multilateral” air operation report finalized by the Logistics Cluster.

2. CLUSTER ACTIVITIES UPDATES:

• The Logistics Cluster meeting was held today 11th May at WFP office in Yangoon. Around 40 participants from UN, NGOs and IOs attended the meeting.
• During the meeting the following issues we discussed:

1. A presentation of the Logistics Cluster Con-ops was given. Logistics Cluster noted that preliminary investigation shows that Pyapon may provide better access as logistics hub, rather that Bogale.
2. Presentation of the Logistics Cluster webpage as source of logistics information for the relief operation
3. Explanation of the air transport procedure in Yangoon snapshots stressing the necessity to follow the instructions there reported
4. Warehouse availability in Yangoon : 2 logistics officers from UNICEF and WHO will be supporting the cluster in assessing the availability of storage capacity in Yangoon in order to be able to organize a common warehouse facility
5. Road transport: some NGOs reported that the road from Yangoon to Labutta is not accessible to trucks heavier that 7 mt
6. CARE and SFC will be supporting the cluster by assessing the airfield in Pathein as well as the possibility to establish there a logistics hub.
7. The cross border operation: UNHCR had one 20 mt truck crossing the border between Thailand and Myanmar. The cargo was than offloaded and loaded onto a Myanmar registered truck and is now on its way to Yangoon.
8. Some agencies are willing to move equipments down from the North of Myanmar to Pathein by train and they requested the cluster to provide information on the train way from Yangoon to Pathein. CARE and SCF will support the cluster on this additional task.
9. A Merlin logistics officer joined the cluster team in Yangoon
10. The next Yangoon logistics Cluster meeting will be taking place on Wednesday. Time to be soon communicated

• The Logistics Cluster is working on preliminary arrangements for the setting up of the interagency common transport service from a staging area in Bangkok.

• A meeting with the Thai Local authorities to discuss the issue is scheduled for tomorrow.
• The cluster consolidation work of the incoming pipeline is ongoing. The cluster is requesting all partners to kindly submit the requested information to Rachida Abdelli (abdelli.rachida@wfp.org) the focal point for the collection of this information.
  

3. AIR TRANSPORT

The first report, compiling information on cargo flights that have arrived into Myanmar and Thailand for the response, has been finalized by the logistics cluster and made available on the cluster webpage:http://www.logcluster.org/mm08a/.

The logistics cluster is asking participants to continue compile the suggested format (available on the web) and to provide related information.

An Airbus 300 operated by WFP out of the UNHRD base of Brindisi due to arrive today 11th May carrying relief items for the Irish aid and Norwegian donated item belonging to OCHA.