Wounded Pride Works Wonders

I am happy to see the international pissing contest over who is least 'stingy' has had such excellent results. To be fair, I think that there would have been an outpouring of aid to the disaster victims, however the reaction to a Norwegian's criticism sure upped the ante.

UN Reports Over $2 Billion In Tsunami Relief Pledges
With some 40 countries offering support for the victims of the tsunami disaster, over $2 billion in pledges had already been recorded for the emergency and recovery phase, a senior United Nations relief official said today.

That was more than all of the pledges to all humanitarian appeals in 2004 combined, Jan Egeland, the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, told a press briefing at UN Headquarters in New York.

The international compassion had never ever been like this, Mr. Egeland said, noting that Japan's extremely generous pledge of $500 million was the biggest so far. There were also huge pledges from the United States and the World Bank for the recovery and rehabilitation phase, as well as from the Asian Development Bank, the United Kingdom, Sweden, China, the European Union, and many other partners.