UN: 2010 The Biggest Year For Disaster Relief

NEW YORK TIMES: Spate of Natural Disasters Spurs Record Relief Spending for U.N.

UNITED NATIONS -- The U.N. system will spend more than $3 billion this year responding to natural disasters -- more than the $2.5 billion the world body is budgeted to spend on its own secretariat.

Most of the cash -- believed to be a record amount spent by the world body on natural disasters -- went to emergency efforts for floods in Pakistan and the earthquake in Haiti, but the United Nations mobilized relief in two dozen other countries whose miseries mostly went unnoticed in the international press...

'This was the biggest year'

It's likely 2010 will be the most expensive year on record for U.N. spending on natural disasters.