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Israel-Palestine-Jordan
US receptive to Palestinian funding needs
2008-05-02
LONDON - The United States would look favourably on a request from the Palestinian Authority for more funds to plug a budget shortfall, the top U.S. aid official said on Thursday. Henrietta Fore, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, is in London for a meeting on Friday of international donors who last December pledged $7.4 billion to the Palestinians over three years to support efforts to find peace in the Middle East.

A report from the International Monetary Fund, released in advance of Friday's meeting, said the Palestinian Authority faced a $400 million budget shortfall in the second half of the year.

Asked if Washington would be amenable to a request for more money to help with the budget shortfall, Fore said: "Yes, we think that this is an important part of the world. It's important to support and back strong efforts of progress of people who are working for peaceful, prosperous solutions."
Oh, geez ...
At the December donors' conference in Paris, the United States pledged $555 million for Palestinians over the next year, including $150 million in budget support.
That's $150 million I'd put into wind turbine farms off Nantucket ...
Fore said there was a problem with some countries not disbursing the funds they had promised in Paris. "It is important that we keep up with the good progress of the Palestinian Authority and Prime Minister (Salam) Fayyad's government," she told Reuters in an interview. "So no doubt we will focus (at Friday's conference) on making sure that governments and organisations that have made pledges are making good on their pledges, and in a timely fashion to be useful," she said.

Fore was due to hold talks with Fayyad on Thursday to hear about the situation first hand.

"From what we are seeing there has been good solid financial progress," she said. But the Palestinian Authority's needs had increased both because of the weaker dollar and because it was paying its bills more quickly, she said. "So I'd like to look at that, I'd like to see what their financial needs are and what their progress is," she said.
Henrietta, any chance you could, say, tie the money to getting the krazed killers to back down?
She did not expect the United States to pledge new money on Friday however.

U.S. aid finances economic development, building of infrastructure and humanitarian aid in the Palestinian territories.
Thus allowing the Paleos to use their own money for the Widows Ammunition Fund ...
U.S. humanitarian aid to Gaza, run by the Islamist group Hamas, is stolen thrown away burned channelled mainly via through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Posted by:Steve White

#7  Oh, we're receptive all right. Just put your funding requests in that receptacle right over there in the alley, boys.
Posted by: SteveS   2008-05-02 15:24  

#6  Greed is never satisfied.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,353944,00.html EFL
U.N.'s World Food Program Cried Poverty While Sitting on Cash Stockpile of More Than $1.22 Billion
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 (WFP) 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 WFP’s executive director, Josette Sheeran, on March 31, 2008 — 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 WFP’s latest budget.

In an op-ed article published in the International Herald Tribune on May 1, 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.

The audited statements are due to be presented to the annual Rome meeting of WFPÂ’s supervisory executive board in June.

Ever since WFP first announced the looming crisis of food aid for the world’s poorest people — based largely on dramatic international hikes in food costs — the World Food Program and other United Nations spokesmen, including Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, have been steadily ratcheting up the tab required to top off WFP’s budget to meet 2008 needs.

Initially, Sheeran announced that some $500 million was needed, though she added that would not fully fund such things as school food programs for some 20 million hungry youngsters. By the time of the aid conference, attended largely by U.N. agencies and World Bank representatives, the needed funding had risen to $775 million.

By the time the conference ended, Secretary General Ban put the shortfall at roughly $1 billion.

Ban also announced that a U.N. task force dealing with the food crisis would need as much as $1.6 billion in additional funding for seed programs and other means of expanding the global food supply.

On Thursday, President George W. Bush called on Congress to add $770 million in new international food aid to some $350 million in new aid he announced after WFP announced the “silent tsunami” crisis.
Posted by: Thealing Borgia6122   2008-05-02 11:23  

#5  Hush Jim, they'll take you up on that.

And then give the Paleos the money anyways.
Posted by: Steve White   2008-05-02 11:12  

#4  I'd rather see our own liberal fairies get $555M to produce dancing sock puppet operas for the fine arts fund.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-05-02 08:34  

#3  The only thing we should give the Palestinians is a MOAB from 20,000 feet.
Posted by: RWV   2008-05-02 06:52  

#2  US receptive

With vaseline and everything.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2008-05-02 06:30  

#1  Why is Bush and Congress borrowing printing money to give to terrorists while the US dollar drops in value hourly? Oil hasn't got more expensive the Dollar has got worth LESS. Congress and the President can do something about this they can stop printing money for stupid crap like bankrolling terrorists.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom   2008-05-02 05:03  

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