Posted on 12/28/2004 12:03:47 PM PST by smag499
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." Continued ...
To he!! with him anyway.
He also said that if we were taxed more that we would be able afford more. What a putz.
Yeah, that's nice... When is someone going to stand up and say what really needs saying when it comes to the U.N. It's long been time to call a spade a spade!
I think a Tereza response to him would have been appropriate.
TRANSLATION: "It's not my fault. Now quit standing around and help me get the poop back into this horse."
That little twerp heard an earful from someone and it wasn't Colin Powell.
Looks like we know who's stingy now.
bump!
Media contacts for Mr Jan Egeland, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs
lawday@un.org
bunker@un.org
I truly wish our President and State Department would stop pandering to this wasteful group of leeches. They have never accomplished anything positive and never will. It's a cesspool of corruption and thievery. It's more than time to pull the plug.
"We are busting our butts to help and comments like that don't reflect what we are doing,"
Well said. It is comforting to me that we give a much larger part of our GDP than our detractors.
What the UN folks should be saying is, "Why don't people like Soros use their wealth for something meaningful, like relief aid, rather than trying to bash a conservative president?"
HA!!!!!! I just heard Cici Connelly bring out how much $$$ we gave ourselves during the hurricanes that hit us this year. I was wondering the same thing; and where was the aid from the rest of the world for us?
"I have been misinterpreted when I yesterday said that my belief that rich countries in general can be more generous. This has nothing to do with any particular country with the response to this emergency," he said.
You can't see it but I'm flipping off my screen right now due to this dipsh!t's remarks.
I don't think it's the "stingy" remark that ticked me & everyone else off so much but his "we want to pay higher taxes" remark.
And he has NOT been "misinterpreted", check out his quotes, it looks clear to me that he has a big time animosity for the US and other "rich" countries.
"It is beyond me why are we so stingy, really," the Norwegian-born U.N. official told reporters. "Christmastime should remind many Western countries at least, [of] how rich we have become."
"There are several donors who are less generous than before in a growing world economy," he said, adding that politicians in the United States and Europe "believe that they are really burdening the taxpayers too much, and the taxpayers want to give less. It's not true. They want to give more."
Better yet, watch the video and listen to his voice inflections. (it's at about the 40min mark)
The UN gave billions to Saddam Hussein and his enablers in France, Germany and Russia. Why doesn't this turd ask Germany, Russia and France to return that blood money and donate it to the earthquake and tsunami victims?
Looks like Korrupt Kofi reminded him that if a UN official insults the US, we might not use the UN humanitarian organizations which would greatly reduce the opportunity to skim off millions from the relief efforts.
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