| #4 The UN is actually less a disaster than the EU. The reason for this is a reflection of their charter, their constitution. The UNSC actually *does* help, in an indirect manner, to govern the activities of the UNSC members, the ones that really call the shots in the world (granted, a bit out of date: its membership should be the US, Russia, China, Europe, India, South America and Africa). But this only comes from the intentions of its members, not from the UN charter, which has little power over its members. The EU, however, has allowed the intentions, good or bad, of its members, to be subverted by a federal bureaucracy that has only *its* intentions, and *its* disgusting, bloated and monstrous constitution as *its* guide. This means that while the UN is a bloated, mostly inert joke filled with feckless and corrupt bureaucrats ignored by everyone, the EU is ruled by them. |
Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said it was more efficient for Australia to continue to coordinate its tsunami aid directly with Indonesia rather than go through the United Nations. Downer said that regardless of Friday's report revealing corruption in the UN's oil-for-food program in Iraq and highlighting major flaws in the global body, Australia was always going to deal directly with Jakarta. "It's not that I don't trust them (the UN), we do put money into the United Nations, but in terms of getting the optimal outcome, we think in the case of Indonesia, being a next door neighbour, the optimal outcome is going to be a bilateral program," Downer told the CNN TV network in London. "Indonesia is a sovereign country, they will make their own decisions ultimately on how money is spent. They are the principal coordinating authority for tsunami relief and rehabilitation. The UN agencies can provide assistance as well and we obviously welcome that and in some cases we provided money for people like UNICEF and the World Food Program. But I do not think, at the end of the day, you can brush aside the responsibility of the individual national governments to coordinate relief within their own countries."