World in brief: Group turns down U.S. food donations
A humanitarian group has turned down $46 million worth of U.S. food aid, arguing that the way the American government distributes its help hurts poor farmers.
CARE said wheat donated by the U.S. government and sold by charities to finance anti-poverty programs results in low-priced crops being dumped on local markets, and small-scale growers cannot compete.
Other experts said they share CARE’s concern, but stressed that food donations are sometimes needed when a natural disaster harms an area’s agriculture, such as the flooding that North Korea says has devastated vast tracts of its farmland.
The Atlanta-based CARE agreed with that view. “We are not against emergency food aid for things like drought and famine,” spokeswoman Alina Labrada said Thursday.
But, she added, the donation of wheat and other crops does not help in regions where people consistently go hungry because farming has been weakened by international competition. “They are being hurt instead of helped by this mechanism,” she said.
Labrada said such areas would be helped more if the U.S. and other donors gave cash that could be spent on locally produced crops, which would stimulate agricultural expansion.
Jerusalem
U.S. offers Israelis $30 billion for arms
The United States offered Israel an unprecedented $30 billion of military aid over 10 years on Thursday, bolstering its closest Mideast ally and ensuring the state’s military edge over its neighbors long into the future.
The package was meant in part to offset U.S. plans to offer Saudi Arabia advanced weapons and air systems that would greatly improve the Arab country’s air force. Israel has said it has no opposition to the Saudi aid.
The deal represents a 25 percent rise in U.S. military aid to Israel, from a current $2.4 billion a year to $3 billion a year over the next 10 years.
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said the package was meant to back peace-seeking countries like Israel and moderate Arab states in the region to counter U.S. adversaries such as Iran.
“The only way to peace is to show countries like Iran and Syria that the U.S. will remain the primary factor of stability in this region,” Burns said at Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
Tokyo
Heat records set; at least 13 dead
Japan sizzled through its hottest day on record Thursday as a heat wave claimed at least 13 lives and threatened power supplies strained by a recent earthquake, authorities and media reports said.
The mercury hit 105.6 degrees in the western city of Tajimi and the central city of Kumagaya, breaking a previous national record of 105.4 degrees set in 1933, the Meteorological Agency said.
In the Hachioji region of Tokyo, temperatures reached 101.7 degrees, breaking the previous record of 101.3 degrees for August.
The average high temperature in central Tokyo for the month of August is 87.4 degrees.
Ten people died Thursday due to the heat, most of them elderly, public broadcaster NHK said.