The Foreign Agriculture Service issued the following GAIN report:
The Food Safety and Inspection Service announces that the USDA Office of the Under Secretary for Food Safety and the Food and Drug Administration are sponsoring a public meeting on October 13, 2010 to provide information and receive public comments on agenda items and draft U.S. positions that will be discussed at the 32nd session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses of the Codex Alimentarius Commission, which will be held in Santiago, Chile on November 1-5, 2010.
The Food Safety and Inspection Service has issued updated versions of its list of Canadian (September 30, 2010) and Ireland (September 30, 2010) firms eligible to export meat and poultry to the U.S.
FSIS has provided updated information for the export of U.S. meat and poultry to the following countries:
On September 21, 2010, the Food Safety and Inspection Service finalized U.S. comments on the latest draft guidelines for risk analysis of food borne antimicrobial resistance (Alinorm 10/33/42, Appendix II) in preparation for the October 18-22, 2010 meeting of the 4th session of the Ad Hoc Codex1 Intergovernmental Task Force on Antimicrobial Resistance.
The Securities and Exchange Commission recently charged ABB Ltd with violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for using subsidiaries to pay bribes to Mexican officials to obtain business with government-owned power companies, and to pay kickbacks to Iraq to obtain contracts under the U.N. Oil for Food Program.
The International Trade Administration has reopened and extended the deadline for additional applications to September 29, 2010 for its Aerospace Supplier Development Mission to China.
Deputy USTR and Ambassador to the WTO Punke has issued a statement on the recently released WTO Trade Policy Review for the U.S. He describes the report's major findings and highlights U.S. objectives for trade, including the goal to double U.S. exports in the next five years, negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) Agreement, work for ambitious and balanced results in the WTO Doha Round, etc.
The Federal Register has published President Obama's Executive Order 13553, which imposes sanctions on Iranian officials determined to be responsible for or complicit in serious human rights abuses involving Iran. Any property in the U.S. or in the possession or control of U.S. persons in which the eight individuals listed in the Annex have an interest is blocked, and U.S. persons are prohibited from engaging in transactions with them. The individuals are also subject to visa sanctions.
The Justice Department has announced that the U.S. recently filed a civil complaint against Coltec Industries Inc., a subsidiary of EnPro Industries Inc., and the National Steel and Shipbuilding Company (NASSCO), a subsidiary of General Dynamics Corp. The complaint was filed under the Clean Air Act and the marine diesel engine rules issued by the Environmental Protection Agency. The complaint alleges that Coltec’s Fairbanks Morse Engine Division violated the Act by manufacturing and selling 32 marine engines that were not covered by an EPA-issued certificate of conformity and that NASSCO violated the Act by installing those engines in ships it built and sold in the U.S., etc.