ABSTRACT
By early May, spokespeople for international organizations and the relief agencies had run out of hyperboles. “We have had an unprecedented spate of disasters,” said Philip Johnston, president of CARE. “We’re dealing with 15 of them at the moment.” “The needs are overwhelming,” said Al Panico, director of international relief for the American Red Cross. James Grant, executive director of UNICEF, said, “These are really the most severe set of problems one can remember coming at one time since the end of World War II.” And Richard Walden, president of Operation USA, called the flare-up of global crises “biblical in proportion.”1
