Tsunami in a Teapot

“The United States is not stingy. We are the greatest contributor to international relief efforts in the world,” Colin Powell affirmed this morning.

He said the United States had responded to an appeal by the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent by providing $4 million of the $7 million it initially requested worldwide.

Powell was reacting to stinging comments made on Monday by Jan Egeland, the United Nations emergency relief coordinator, who said “If, actually, the foreign assistance of many countries now is 0.1 or 0.2 percent of the gross national income, I think that is stingy, really. I don’t think that is very generous. It bothers me that we—the rich nations—are not becoming more generous the more rich we become.”

The State Department said today that the United States would contribute another $20 million in addition to the $15 million already pledged, including the $4 million going to the Red Cross and Red Crescent.

The death toll has reached nearly 45,000 with millions homeless in eleven countries on two continents.

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