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Old 01-12-2005, 11:06 AM   #1
MagiK
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Interesting to see the numbers associated with the UN claims. and where the bulk of the money goes....and comes from.

Of course these pages don't show the gross wastage of the money...but I think they are damning enough in and of themselves.

So without further ado I give you the following links:

Pre-Tsunami UN Spending Priorities.

Interesting to see who the LARGEST donor by FAR is...yet the enlightened toss around words like Stingy

Of all the peoples of the world that need help THIS is the priority funding? And look who the leading contributor is

And last...not from the UN but a commentary on the UN's #1 charitable cause.
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Old 01-12-2005, 11:09 AM   #2
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Note that even in these graphs and illustrations they fail to mention that much of the charitable contributions from the US are not counted in the equations because they don't count that which the UN does not touch or approve of.
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Old 01-12-2005, 02:18 PM   #3
John D Harris
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What in the world is the Great Lakes Region doing getting UN aid. Is that another region of the world other then the Great Lakes of North America?
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Old 01-12-2005, 06:03 PM   #4
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Did I read this link correctly? Why not designate the original refugee's (from 1948) children and grand children as refugees? Are not those people without a State as much as thier Parents and Grandparents? Once the Palestinians have an official and unoccupied State and an effective government they will no longer be refugees, right?

U.N. news this week:

Link

Asian Tsunami Efforts Avert `Second Wave' of Disease, UN Says
Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Relief efforts are successfully preventing outbreaks of disease in the aftermath of last month's Asian tsunami disaster, United Nations emergency coordinator Jan Egeland said.

``I believe we can now avert the second wave of destruction and disease,'' Egeland told a news conference in Geneva today before a gathering of ministers from 30 nations to coordinate pledges and spending of reconstruction funds. ``So far it's going according to plan.''

Asian, European and U.S. leaders agreed at a meeting in Jakarta last week that the UN should coordinate the world's biggest recovery operation. Aid pledges for countries around the Indian Ocean hit by the tsunami have risen to $5 billion.

The total number of dead and missing from the Dec. 26 disaster fell today to about 167,000 people from 173,000 after Indonesia cut its reported number of fatalities to 95,450 from 113,000. About 5 million people are in need of assistance.

UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said that it may take as long as five to 10 years for the affected countries to recover.

``We hope it will happen much quicker'' than Annan suggested, Egeland said. In any case, he said, the UN expects to have to provide shelter, food and medical supplies for as many as 2 million people for at least the next six months.

``I hope we will see not only unprecedented generosity and emergency relief but an unprecedented transition to rehabilitation and development,'' Egeland told the news conference.

Debt Relief

The Paris Club group of 19 creditor governments meets in Paris tomorrow to discuss a suspension of debt payments for affected nations. The Group of Seven leading industrialized nations agreed last week they will stop collecting about $3 billion a year from countries including Indonesia, Thailand and Sri Lanka until the costs of reconstruction have been assessed by lenders such as the International Monetary Fund.

The UN is working with international financial experts including PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, the No. 3 U.S. accounting firm, to ensure public accountability of how relief funds are spent as the world body begins the multibillion-dollar relief program.

Egeland has said that his office has a financial tracking system up and running ``in its initial form'' so the public can follow the money as it works its way to those in need. That should help ensure that all pledges are delivered he said.

The reconstruction work mustn't run into the problems encountered by other relief efforts, U.K.-based aid agency Oxfam says. Only 67 percent of the $17 million pledged after the December 2003 earthquake in Bam, Iran was received and in 1999, less than one-third of the $9 billion promised to Central America in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch was disbursed and supplies were poorly managed, according to Oxfam.

The U.S. Congress criticized the UN-administered program that used Iraqi oil revenue to buy food and medicine, saying former dictator Saddam Hussein and others illegally profited from it.



To contact the reporter on this story:
Warren Giles in Geneva at wgiles@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Catherine Hickley at chickley@bloomberg.net
Last Updated: January 11, 2005 10:11 EST


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CNN

Financial Times
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Old 01-12-2005, 06:52 PM   #5
Cerek
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Interesting article, Chewbacca. I noticed two things of particular interest.

First, that Egelund was addressing a group of ministers from 30 countries that were in charge of seeing that the aid was distributed properely. Interesting that this task apparantly is being handled by religious leaders of the country rather than government leaders. In our own church bulletin this week, their are about 3 different organizations we can make donations to for relief effort - depending on which group we want to handle the funds.

The other thing I noticed was that statement that it would take the countries 5-10 years to recover completely from this disaster, although relief workers hoped it would be accomplished sooner.

Wellll, that depends on exactly what you're talking about. My home county was hit with an F3-F4 tornado when I was a boy. I clearly remembered being absolutely STUNNED by the devestation. Entire mountainsides had their trees all knocked down and laying in rows like toothpicks.

Relief efforts began quickly and most of those that had lost homes had new places to live within a few months to a year. But the damage to the land itself simply can NOT be rushed. It took well over 20 years before those mountainsides looked "normal" again....and that's only because the U.S. Forest Service (which has a local office in my hometown) undertook a HUGE re-planting effort.

It was easily 25 years before it became difficult to "trace" the path the tornado took that night, and I'm sure it will take just as long (if not longer) for the damage done by the tsunami's to be completely repaired.
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Old 01-12-2005, 07:48 PM   #6
Azred
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Question Mark

Quote:
from the article:
The U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an organization set up uniquely for Palestinian refugees in 1949, defines Palestinian refugees differently from all other refugees. They are persons who lived in Palestine "between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict." Especially important is that UNRWA extends the refugee status to "the descendants of persons who became refugees in 1948." It even considers the children of just one Palestinian refugee parent to be refugees.
It is interesting that the UNRWA has decided to extend "special status" to Palestinians. I don't think they liked how Israel came into existence after WWII....

Quote:
from the article:
The policies of Arab governments then make things worse by keeping Palestinians locked in an amber-like refugee status. In Lebanon, for instance, the 400,000 stateless Palestinians are not allowed to attend public school, own property or even improve their housing stock.
Just because they are all basically Arab doesn't mean they have to like one another. [img]graemlins/beigesmilewinkgrin.gif[/img]

Quote:
from the article:
That will only happen if the U.S. government recognizes UNRWA's role in perpetuating Palestinian misery. In a misguided spirit of "deep commitment to the welfare of Palestinian refugees," Washington currently provides 40 percent of UNRWA's $306 million annual budget; it should be zeroed out.
Yeah, right! Were we to do that, we'd be vilified in the media more so than we have been lately for being "stingy".

re: the link showing the amount given versus (amount given/GDP). The percentage of GDP being given was put in place only to create a list that doesn't have the US as the largest contributor. Remember--the UN, in its current state, has an inherent anti-US agenda. No, I'm not paranoid...I am stating a fact, based on actual news stories and events.
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Old 01-12-2005, 09:37 PM   #7
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The link showing amount/GDP is the most important one by every measure of ethics I can think of. The US comes out well on each measure - its hardly victimisation.

The second table allows me to see that South Korea, for example, gives a great amount of what they can afford, whereas they don't feature in the top table at all.

Even if (for the sake of argument) we accept that the UN has an anti-US agenda, reporting amount/GDP is simply good statistical presentation.
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Old 01-12-2005, 10:36 PM   #8
Chewbacca
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[quote]Originally posted by Azred:
Quote:
Remember--the UN, in its current state, has an inherent anti-US agenda. No, I'm not paranoid...I am stating a fact, based on actual news stories and events.
Strange, I have access to the same facts and media, yet I disagree that the U.N. as an inherent anti-U.S. agenda. From it's over-all works I would say the U.N. generally has a pro-better-world-and-quality-of-living agenda.

The U.N. is made up of nations that all have self-interest and it comes first...nothing wrong with that. From that perspective the nations of the U.N. are all anti-the-other-Nations-of-the-U.N. as much as they are pro-the-other-nations-of-the-U.N.
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Old 01-12-2005, 10:59 PM   #9
Chewbacca
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So what happens when the U.N.s financial dealings become transparent and fraud and waste is confronted and managed?

It's obvious the U.N. does help people. Weighing this versus the legitimate complaints against the U.N. is my measure of the U.N.s worth.

As far as relief coordination goes, the U.N. is built for the task. I can't complain about the U.N.s effort to help people stricken by misfortune when I imagine it well-managed. So what's the beef is the management problems are fixed?

Oh, and I think the U.N.s opponents have thouroughly worn out making references to the "stingy" comment. So often when tossed out it is taken out of context- I actually forgot what the guy really said! Let it go and just move on. [img]smile.gif[/img]
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Old 01-12-2005, 11:42 PM   #10
John D Harris
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Quote:
Originally posted by shamrock_uk:
The link showing amount/GDP is the most important one by every measure of ethics I can think of. The US comes out well on each measure - its hardly victimisation.

The second table allows me to see that South Korea, for example, gives a great amount of what they can afford, whereas they don't feature in the top table at all.

Even if (for the sake of argument) we accept that the UN has an anti-US agenda, reporting amount/GDP is simply good statistical presentation.
The GDP percentage only works if you adjust for the percentage of GDP the government takes out in taxes. ie: Country "A's" government gives 1% of GDP, but takes only 10% of GDP in taxes. Country "A" is giving 10% of what they have.
Country "B's" government gives 2% of GDP, but takes out 40% of GDP in taxes. Country "B" is giving only 5% of what they have.

GDP and government budgets are not the same thing.
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