CJ, when I said public funds, I meant just that, not government funds.

When did I last donate? Feb, 1997, when I left West Africa, prior to which I donated on a regular basis.

That AI’s job is to “highlight human rights abuses throughout the world”. This is a futile, counterproductive, ineffective pursuit that has been hijacked and neutered. It is time they did some real work and produced “results” instead of producing more “reports”. As I saw in West Africa, they are useless. I stopped donating when I realised how useless and ineffective they had become.

And your point about the “far right” and “AI doing their job” is what precisely?

Oh, so by "public" you meant Amnesty's members and supporters. Thanks for clearing that up, since when most commentators talk about "public funds", they're talking about taxpayers' money.

No wonder you call yourself spindoc.

Those of us who voluntarily support Amnesty International's work are quite happy with their performance, otherwise we wouldn't give them our money. Besides gathering information, publicising human rights abuses and pressuring governments via public campaigns, what do you expect them to do?

They're obviously having some effect, since the lunar Right seems quite threatened by them.

spindoc

Going by your statements in this thread (and others), I doubt very much you understand the role and contribution of an NGO in the UN process. I doubt even more your understanding of the MDG's.

Therefore, I'm not surprised you don't understand that there are certain things that can be done, and certain things that cannot be done - all with the caveat of "legal enforceability".

As to your virus jibes ... that just demonstrates to me (and probably others) that you are an example of the malaise that appears to be symptomatic of our not so enlightened and cultured society.

One thing is sure - people with ardent negativity, people that continuously snipe from the sidelines, and people that cannot provide constructive input to the issues at hand - will curtail (if not derail) any meaningful progress that Amnesty International (and others) and the UN are trying to achieve.

I am not surprised that you show all these characteristics.