UN Official Backs Down

[theski]

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The international response to a catastrophic tsunami in Asia has been quick and generous, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday, playing down his earlier comments that wealthy nations were stingy.

U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland rowed back from statements he made on Monday after an annoyed Secretary of State Colin Powell said Washington was "the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world."

"The United States is not stingy," Powell told CNN's "American Morning" program.

Egeland, a Norwegian, pleaded at a Monday news conference for individuals and governments around the world to respond generously to the humanitarian disaster created by the tsunami that struck a broad swath of southern Asia on Sunday.

Asked about the response of rich nations to such crises, he said: "It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really."

"If actually the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of their gross national income, I think that is stingy really. I don't think that is very generous," he said.

The United Nations urged rich nations a quarter of a century ago to give away 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product every year in the form of development aid.

To date, however, just a handful of European nations, most of them in Scandinavia, actually meet that goal.

The United States, the world's largest economy, contributes about 0.13 a year of its GDP to development aid. But that figure excludes aid to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as food aid, where the United States is the world's largest donor.

"We are busting our butts to help and comments like that don't reflect what we are doing," said a State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Egeland told reporters on Tuesday: "I've been misinterpreted when I yesterday said that I believed that rich countries in general can be more generous."

"It has nothing to do with any particular country or the response to this emergency. We are in early days and the response has so far been overwhelmingly positive," he said.

"The international assistance that has come and been pledged from the United States, from Europe and from countries in the region has also been very generous," Egeland added.

Countries have contributed or pledged tens of millions of dollars in the first few days after the disaster.

The United States provided an initial $15 million mostly channeled through the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, plus logistical support for aid efforts. On Tuesday, the U.S. Agency for International Development added $20 million for the earthquake relief, a White House spokesman said.

God I hate the UN...

Bite me UN

[Elfdart]

You are one dumb twat.

"It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really."

So a Norwegian who says "we" are stingy is referring to the U.S.? Even if he means the West or First World or whatever, it's not necessarily a slam at the United States any more than at any other country -including his own. Twain said a lie can travel around the world before the truth can get its shoes on. Of course Faux News, the Paper Moon and right-wing hate radio have given this lie an even bigger head start.

Here are the facts about relief aid:

U.S., Italy, Japan Named by Oxfam as G-8's Stingiest Aid Donors
Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S., Italy and Japan are the stingiest foreign aid donors in the Group of Eight nations, Oxfam said, aiming to put pressure on world leaders to boost payments to poor nations by $50 billion next year.

The Oxford, England, based charity said aid budgets in the world's richest industrial nations have been cut in half in the past three decades, totaling about 0.25 percent of gross domestic product now compared with 0.5 percent in 1962.

``As rich countries get richer, they're giving less and less,'' said Barbara Stocking, a director of Oxfam. ``This is a scandal that must stop. Unless world leaders act now, the year will end in shameful failure.''

The comments will help U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair in his goal to make alleviating poverty in Africa one of the major accomplishments of the G-8 next year when Britain leads the organization.

Industrial nations pledged in 1970 to boost aid payments to 0.7 percent of national income. Today, only Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Luxembourg have met the goal. Of 22 nations tracked by Oxfam, 17 are failing to meet the goal, including all of the G-8 nations.

G-8 nations for years have agreed on the principle of boosting aid and relieving the debts of poor countries, only to bicker about the details of implementing any plan.

G-8 Squabble

For the past two years, U.K. Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown has attempted to win support for an International Finance Facility designed to double the amount of debt relief available to $100 billion. The U.S., Canada, Japan and Germany oppose the plan.

Oxfam said industrial nations should boost aid payments by $50 billion, paying to cancel the debts of the world's poorest nations and fund programs to alleviate disease and poverty. Doing nothing would mean 45 million children will die and 97 million more will be out of school by 2015, the charity said.

The U.S. contributes the least foreign aid of any of the 22 nations tracked by Oxfam. Its budget is about 0.14 percent of gross domestic product, followed by Italy at 0.17 percent and Japan and Austria at 0.20 percent.

France is the most generous donor in the G-8, contributing 0.42 percent of national income, followed by Britain at 0.34 percent, Germany at 0.28 percent and Canada at 0.26 percent. France has said it will meet the 0.7 percent goal by 2012 and the U.K. by 2013.

The rest of the G-8 nations including the U.S. have no timetable on when they plan to meet the goal. G-8 nations reaffirmed that goal at a summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and have called for more generous aid donations at meetings in 2000, 2002 and in Washington in September.

I might add that as with comparing unemployment figures between the U.S. and Europe, Uncle Sam's books are cooked. How? The term "foreign aid" makes people think of vaccinations, school construction, and so on. But in the US budget, "foreign aid" includes weapons for client regimes, some of which are not exactly poverty-stricken (Israel $3 billion). It includes attempts to undermine and overthrow the lawfully elected goverments of foreign countries (Venezuela, anyone?) through the National Endowment for Democracy and the CIA. It wouldn't surprise me if the cornholings at Abu Ghraib are chalked up to "foreign aid".

The best way for concerned Americans to help the tidal wave victims is to donate to NGOs like the Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders and others. Leave the UN-bashing to the black helicopter/ Protocols of the Elders of Zion crowd.

[Col. Crackpot]

elfdart, just FYI :yellow text is unreadable in the lighter colored board themes.