Posted on 01/24/2005 9:39:22 AM PST by MikeEdwards
The United States, which wants to take an international role in setting up a global tsunami-warning system and is in the running for the job with the United Nations, doubts the UN has the ability to coordinate such a program.
Uncle Sam is right.
Although it rated little mainline media attention, The UN already had a tsunami-warning system in place on December 26, 2004. The existing warning system goes under another one of those confusing UN names: the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty Organization, CNTBTO for UN short.
As reported by the International Herald Tribune, this was the state of affairs at Vienna, Austria CNTBTO headquarters on December 26: "Early on Sunday morning, powerful computers in a Vienna office building received seismic data on the earthquake that spawned the devastating tsunamis across South Asia–information that might have saved lives in the hours between the quake and the waves hitting the coasts of Sri Lanka, India and several other countries." (Emphasis Canada Free Press).
But the life-saving data streaming into CNTBTO headquarters was for naught, as the 300-plus staff supposedly manning the computers was on vacation until January 4.
With promises of a treaty going nowhere since its 1996 inception, the CNTBO with a senior staff that only comes to the office only to check emails, is the stuff of sitcoms.
Add to this comi-tragedy, that the CNTBTO has been effectively grounded ever since the Islamic State of Iran shut off one of its monitoring stations in January of 2002 and that the international community has turned a blind eye on the UN agency even though its $100,000 a year salaries to AWOL senior staff are still being paid. . . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at canadafreepress.com ...
---interesting --and typical of that totally worthless organization--
yawn...what else to expect from the decrepid UN junk heap.
why do these politicians keep funding this United Nonsense?
who would have guessed
The author of this strikes me as someone that knows absolutely nothing about tsunamis or seismology.
The nuclear detection network really isn't going to provide seismic data drastically different from what is already avaliable.
And it does NOTHING to detect an actual wave. The problem is the seismic data really doesn't tell you if there's a wave or how big it is.
The proposed NEW network consists of actual buoys and ocean floor sensors to detect waves and prevent false alarms.
I take any pretext to whack the UN.
The time to test your new nuke is now known, 24 December to 6 January.
The UN cannot lead on anything. They are a small part of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation's efforts to create a tsunami warning system, in which there are major partners like the US and Japan. The warning system was to be tested this year, too late.
The UN probably will wait for this warning system to go online and then claim credit for it.
So thanks to the U.N., thousands of people died for no reason. Other than they were on vacation.
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