"It is not rare to see disaster relief money fail to reach the hands of victims. In a publicized incident after a disaster in 2003, in a RBM 59,060,000 relief grant from the National government, only RMB 500,000 reached hands of victims after two years."

Which is why I still refuse to give a single yuan to any of the collection buckets being shaken under my nose. The fear of 8 mao ending up paying for some provincial party member's mistress is a genuine one.

I am surprised and yet not surprised that the China Red Cross should be getting criticism here. I saw a piece about them on the TV news and the whole set up seemed chaotic. Dozens of staff fingering their way through great wads of RMB, while dozens more "staff" hovered in the background.

In these situations, there is just no-one to trust, painful as that is. Contributions should as much as possible be material, although even then I wouldn't put it past some of these cronies to enter the tent selling business in a year's time with a huge stockpile to get rid of.

anyone else having trouble with hotmail/youtube these days?

Maybe this earthquake will spur many movements towards more accountability, sunshine laws and good governance?

Wishful thinking on my part.

Yes, having trouble with hotmail.

Interesting. The reason cited by Netease is the exact same reason I refuse to donate to the American Red Cross. They have a habit of taking in donations that people make for a specific cause and spreading it throughout the organization rather than the donor's intended recipient. This became an issue of contention after Hurricane Katrina.