A Foreign Service Officer sends, via his blog "Diplomad":

The local Guardian correspondent has called the Embassy; he is doing a negative story on the U.S. relief effort based on 'information' provided by the U.N. at a press conference. ...

This Embassy has been running 24/7 since the December 26 earthquake and tsunami. ... That work, unfortunately, has brought ever-increasing contact with the growing U.N. presence in this capital; in fact, we've found that to avoid running into the U.N., we must go out to where the quake and tsunami actually hit. As we come up on two weeks since the disaster struck, the U.N. is still not to be seen where it counts -- except when holding well-staged press events...

Ah, yes, but the luxury hotels are full of U.N. assessment teams and visiting big shots from New York, Geneva, and Vienna. The city sees a steady procession of U.N. Mercedes sedans and top-of-the-line SUV's -- a fully decked out Toyota Landcruiser is the U.N. vehicle of choice; it doesn't seem that concerns about 'global warming' and preserving your tax dollars run too deep among the U.N.ocrats...

[F]ortunately, thanks to retrograde racist war-mongers' such as John Howard and George W. Bush, as we sat in air conditioned meeting rooms with these U.N.ocrats, young Australians and Americans were at that moment “coordinating” without the U.N. and saving the lives of tens-of-thousands of people.

Hat tip to The Corner.