Written by: Beck
Definition of a bad idea:
Meanwhile the U.S.-led core group of Australia, Japan and India has decided to disband and blend its role into the broader U.N. effort.
"The core group helped to catalyse the international response," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told the conference in Jakarta according to a prepared text released by the State Department.
"Having served its purpose, it will ... now fold itself into the broader coordination efforts of the United Nations."
But now for
something amazing:
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder stepped up the German government's pledge of financial aid to tsunami victims to 500 million euros ($660m) as European nations moved to increase help to the devastated region.
Something
more amazing:
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said his country would donate an additional billion Australian dollars ($764.5 million) to a partnership with Indonesia for rehabilitation in the wake of the tsunami disaster.
And finally,
something dumbfounding:
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan has appealed for $977 million in emergency relief over the next six months for the "unprecedented global catastrophe" triggered by the Asian tsunamis.
First of all, how in God's name can they need that much more after the enormous amounts already pledged, and second of all, how in hell did they come up with the number $977 million? I am mystified.
