Learning from the masters

Remember Jan "Humperdink" Egeland in his plush UN office in New York, standing in front of the UN flag announcing with pride that "We" now have five helicopter carriers in the region?

Now, clearly, the EU has been taking lessons from the UN about how to claim the glory from other peoples' actions.

With not even a blush, the EU commission has proudly announced that "the European Union and its member states have so far pledged a total of €436 million for the south Asian disaster."

Actually, the commission has pledged €23 million from what it calls "its own funds" (i.e., our money) while all the rest came from the 25 EU member countries.

Never mind, EU president Jose Manuel Barroso is to travel to an emergency donors' summit in Jakarta on Thursday along with Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker (full expenses paid). Then they can claim they have solved the whole emergency by themselves.