Feckless

I looked in the dictionary this morning and found this definition:

Feckless (adj.) 1. Lacking purpose or vitality; feeble or ineffective.

2. Careless and irresponsible


I would like to add a third definition and a photograph to the online dictionary.

The third definition would simply be “United Nations” and the picture would be of Kofi Annan.

Not to bore you to tears, but I’m posting the entire UN Spokesman’s daily briefing issued on the UN Website Wednesday because the site changes each day and is poorly archived. My main reason in posting the entire text is to show you how ridiculous the UN's daily briefing is.

Here it is…

"ANNAN RETURNING TO U.N. HEADQUARTERS TO OVERSEE RELIEF EFFORTS FOR ASIAN EARTHQUAKE

* The Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, will be cutting short his vacation and returning to New York on Wednesday to oversee the UN’s relief efforts following the devastating disaster that struck south-east Asia.

* He is expected to meet with the UN's Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, as well as the heads of a number of UN humanitarian agencies on Thursday at headquarters.

* Over the last two days the Secretary-General has spoken to the leaders of all the countries hit by this disaster to, not only express his condolences, but also to see what they need most urgently.

* He has also been in contact with leaders of major donor countries to review the international relief effort and to underscore the UN’s coordinating role.

SENIOR UN OFFICIAL TO TRAVEL TO ASIA TO OVERSEE UN'S RELIEF EFFORTS

* The UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, said in a press briefing that he would be sending his deputy Margareta Walhstrom to the region to oversee the UN’s work on the ground.

* Egeland said that the death toll keeps rising as access to devastated areas increases. He noted the particularly hard hit province of Aceh on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia. He said that UN teams currently on the ground report that the provincial capital of Banda Aceh one in four resident is believed to be dead.

* In Banda Aceh, UN teams say that the lack of infrastructure is making any relief work very difficult. In that area, the UN has set camps for relief workers. Egeland stressed the need for relief workers to be self-contained in their food and shelter needs so as not to be a burden on the already over-stretched local authorities.

* He noted that for each dead person there were four wounded. Health facilities that were not destroyed are now completely overwhelmed. The continuing challenges will focus on food, water and shelter for hundreds of thousands of people from Somalia to Sri Lanka to Indonesia.

* Regarding donations, Egeland said $220 million had already been pledged or given in cash towards the relief efforts. He added that there was an almost equal amount given in in-kind donations and military assets.

* He said that the response from traditional donor countries has been phenomenal. He also noted that there had been a tremendous response from new donors, notably in Asia.

* Egeland announced that a large coordinated appeal would be launched on January 6th in New York. However, UN country teams have identified the following immediate emergency needs: $70 million (Sri Lanka); $20 million (Maldives) and $40 million (Indonesia).

U.N. REFUGEE AGENCY TO AIRLIFT EMERGENCY SHELTER SUPPLIES FOR UP TO 100,000 PEOPLE IN ACEH, INDONESIA

* The UN Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is mounting a major response to the catastrophic tsunami and earthquake disaster in the Indonesian province of Aceh, where it is set to airlift emergency shelter supplies for up to 100,000 people.

* UNHCR is working closely with the United Nations country team in Indonesia in a coordinated response to the catastrophe, and a senior UNHCR staff member will be part of a UN assessment mission to Aceh set for Thursday.

* UNHCR is planning to airlift some 3,500 lightweight tents from its regional warehouse in Dubai. In addition, 20,000 kitchen sets, plastic sheeting for 20,000 families and 100,000 blankets will be airlifted from the agency's central warehouse in Copenhagen. The total value for this first phase of assistance is $1.8 million. The dates of the airlifts have yet to be confirmed.

* An additional 14 UNHCR logistical and field staff will be deployed to help with the Aceh airlifts and distribution of relief supplies to the affected population.

* In Sri Lanka, UNHCR is using its seven offices and 95 staff across the country to continue delivery of emergency relief supplies of plastic sheeting, plastic mats, cooking sets and clothing from its warehouses to the needy population in the war-affected areas and in the south.

* In Thailand, UNHCR is making an immediate contribution of $50,000 to the UN Emergency Relief Fund for the emergency shelter needs of the local population whose homes were washed away by the tidal waves.

* UNHCR will be part of a UN Country Team from Kenya that will conduct an assessment of the situation in Somalia, where hundreds of villages are said to have been destroyed.

UNICEF: MILLIONS AT RISK OF WATER-BORNE DISEASE

* UNICEF, the UN Children’s Fund, warned today that without immediate, wide-scale action to provide safe water in the communities hit by Sunday’s massive ocean flooding, millions of people will be at grave risk of water-borne disease.

* “Standing water can be just as deadly as moving water,” said UNICEF’s Executive Director, Carol Bellamy. “The floods have contaminated the water systems, leaving people with little choice but to use unclean surface water. Under these conditions people will be hard put to protect themselves from cholera, diarrhoea and other deadly diseases.”

* Children, who make up at least one-third of the overall population in the worst-affected countries, are particularly vulnerable to water-borne diseases.

* “Hundreds of thousands of children who survived the massive waves that destroyed their communities now risk getting seriously ill from something as simple as taking a drink of water,” Bellamy said.

* She added that securing safe water supplies and educating people about water and sanitation hygiene is a major component of all of UNICEF’s tsunami relief efforts, now underway in the hardest-hit countries.

U.N. DISASTER OFFICIAL CALLS FOR TSUNAMI EARLY WARNING SYSTEMS TO BE SET UP BY END OF NEXT YEAR

* According to the UN’s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR), tsunami early warning systems could have saved thousands of lives following the recent quake in South Asia.

* Sálvano Briceño, Director of the ISDR Secretariat, said he wants to see that every coastal country around South Asia and Southeast Asia has at least a basic but effective tsunami warning system in place by this time next year.

* The World Conference on Disaster Reduction to be held in Kobe, Japan, on 18-22 January will provide a timely opportunity to learn from Pacific countries’ experiences and to transfer knowledge of tsunami early warning systems to those surrounding the Indian Ocean.

* A special session will be held to work out how such a system could be developed for the region.

OK, I have the following comments on the above “announcements.”

Where the heck is the outrage from the media that Kofi Annan is still on vacation when the world needs the UN? Kofi can stay on vacation, but Bush (who happens to bethe US leader, not the world’s leader) can’t continue his “working” vacation without being labeled as “insensitive?”

“Kofi also has called all of the donor countries to review the relief effort and underscore the UN’s coordinating role.” In other words, Kofi is saying that the UN basically can’t do anything tangable but that he still wants to make sure that all the money goes through his office so he and Kojo can take their cut.

Thank God that the US, Japan, Australia, and India have formed a partnership to sidestep the UN and coordinate the relief work ourselves.

Next, why isn’t Comrade Egeland personally traveling to the disaster region rather than sending his deputy? And why is he surprised that relief workers have to be self contained and self-sufficient in a disaster area? Further, why does he think that the UN's primary role in this matter is to "appeal" to donor countries for relief funding? Why should we give it to the UN rather than spend it directly.

It also seems that the UN is full of last minute revelations of amazement regarding what it takes to respond to a disaster of this magnitude and that “the lack of infrastructure is making any relief work very difficult.” Well Duuhhhh! Where have they been working for the past 60 years, downtown Atlanta, Georgia?

No, downtown NY City?

The UN has PLANS to airlift supplies for up to 100,000 people SOMETIME IN THE NEAR FUTURE. It has already been nearly four days and people are dying of thirst and starving to death. How long are the survivors supposed to wait?

And finally, the UN thinks that it would be a good idea to have a Tsunami warning system set up in the Indian Ocean within a year. Geee Whiz, we’ve only had one in place in the Pacific protecting Alaska and Hawaii since 1947—and it only took the loss of a few hundred lives to get it implemented. The UN sits by and watches the loss of a hundred thousand lives before it "SPRINGS INTO ACTION."

Remember the earlier definition of Feckless? I rest my case...your honor.