As The World Starves, UN Sits on Cash Stockpile
Posted by Raven on May 2nd, 2008
As the world starves…
WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush called on Congress Thursday to approve $770 million to help alleviate dramatically escalating food prices that threaten widespread hunger and increasing social unrest around the world.
In a surprise appearance at the White House, Bush announced he is asking lawmakers to approve the additional funds for global food aid and development programs. The money is being included in a broader $70 billion Iraq war funding measure for 2009 that the White House sent to Capitol Hill on Thursday.
“In some of the world’s poorest nations, rising prices can mean the difference between getting a daily meal and going without food,” Bush said. “The American people are generous people and they’re a compassionate people. We believe in the timeless truth `to whom much is given, much is expected.”
…the US runs to the rescue.
And the UN sits on tons of cash.
Just weeks before it announced the onset of a global food crisis and the urgent need for donors to provide at least $775 million in additional funding, the World Food Program was sitting on a cash and near-cash stockpile of more than $1.22 billion.
The startling figure is contained in the latest audited statements of the WFP, which were endorsed by the WFP’s executive director, Josette Sheeran, on March 31, just a month before Sheeran announced at an international aid conference on April 22 that a “silent tsunami” in rising food prices demanded the huge infusion of cash for the WFP’s latest budget.
In a May 1 International Herald Tribune op-ed, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon further declared that the WFP had just “$18 million cash in hand” in the wake of its appeal for emergency funding.
So why are we wasting so much of our money on this? Why are we not insisting the UN be accountable for every penny it has and then some? Cause we have a government full of stupid, bleeding hearted soft kneed polcats who aren’t interested in helping hungry people. Nope. It’s all about being politically correct. And we can afford to continue funding this foolsihness international group of idiOts known as the UN?
Some things simply amaze me.