China Pushes ?top Priority On Drought relief

To be fair, it should be noted that the United States is the biggest donor tothe UN World Food Program and that our contributions rise as our surpluses do.This food is mostly for emergency relief, which is no bad thing. But we devoteinsufficient food aid to the fight against chronic hunger. We refuse to recognizethe benefits we would reap if, as the world's richest superpower, we put a higherpolitical priority on assuring food security for the world's poor and less on thedemands of the farm lobby.

China pushes ‘top priority’ on drought relief

BEAUBIEN: You know, a lot, and in particular because al-Shabab is controlling a lot of the rural areas that have been hit the hardest by this drought, and al-Shabab has banned international food aid, and it actually attacks relief agencies as they tried to deliver it. Al-Shabab remains incredibly powerful in this part of Somalia, and they actually control all the roads into Baidoa. So, you know, even for aid agencies, they can only get their stuff in here by plane, and it's making things incredibly difficult.

(24:53): Took 25 years for the decal plant and it got nowhere. Got nowhere. All of a sudden, out of necessity, now of a sudden they're talking about it. Of course, that's a 15-year construction project. So then it's time to get our priorities straight. The Inflation Reduction Act shows where our priorities are $370 billion over 10 years, all full of incentives for solar and wind and EV [electric vehicle] chargers, etc. However, it requires that 80% of the minerals in those products come from domestic or fair trade countries. Today, that number is half that, and it has to be done by 2026. Given what I said about mines, there's no way yet in the bill there were $2.6 billion. So $370 billion headline number for renewables, $2.6 billion for coastal protection and restoration, seven tenths of 1%. Okay? Those numbers should be 50:50, not 99:1. And Senator Sinema held it up for an additional $4 billion for drought relief in Arizona.