The Wall Street Journal reports that DNA testing has confirmed that the Washington state cow infected with mad-cow disease came from Canada, a development that allows the U.S. beef industry to shift blame but probably will not appease many countries enough to lift their bans on U.S. beef imports anytime soon. (WSJ dated 01/07/04, www.wsj.com.)
(a) Sanjian has an AD duty rate of zero; no cash deposits will be required although suspension of liquidation will continue.
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued its final results of the changed circumstances antidumping (AD) and countervailing (CV) duty reviews of certain pasta from Turkey, concluding that Tat Konserve Sanayi A.S. (Tat) is the successor-in-interest to Pastavilla Makarnacilik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S. (Pastavilla) for AD and CV duty cash deposit purposes.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site its weekly quota commodity report as of January 6, 2004. This report includes tariff-rate quotas (TRQs) on various products such as beef, tuna, sugar, dairy products, peanuts, cocoa, tobacco, certain Jordan Free Trade Agreement (JFTA), Chile Free Trade Agreement (UCFTA), and Singapore Free Trade Agreement (SFTA) TRQs, etc. This report also includes TRQs on certain HTS Chapter 52 cotton, upland cotton under HTS Chapter 99, the UCFTA, SFTA, CBTPA, AGOA, ATPDEA, and NAFTA tariff preference levels (TPLs) for qualifying apparel and/or other textile articles, the TRQs on worsted wool fabrics under HTS 9902.51.11 & 9902.51.12, etc. (CBP's weekly quota commodity report, dated 01/06/04, available at http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/xp/cgov/import/textiles_and_quotas/commodity/)
On January 9, 2004 the State Department issued a Worldwide Caution to remind U.S. citizens of the continuing threat that they may be targets of terrorist attacks despite the lowering of the homeland security threat level to Yellow (Elevated) from Orange (High).
(Read Footnotes and Disclaimers at End of Notice)
(Read Footnotes and Disclaimers at End of Notice)
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has issued additional instructions on the Special Bill programming (new non-vessel operating common carrier (NVOCC) and Master vessel operating common carrier (VOCC) bill types) for Sea Automated Manifest System (AMS) which was moved into the production environment (i.e., implemented) during the normally scheduled system outage of 11:00 p.m. EST Saturday, January 10, 2004 to 3:00 a.m. Sunday, January 11, 2004.
In December 2003, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced that it would soon issue several additional measures intended to further strengthen protections against Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease.
The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) has issued a press release announcing education and enforcement plans for its new trucking hours-of-service rule. According to the press release, starting January 4, 2004, when the rule was implemented, state and federal officials expect to spend the first 60 days waging an aggressive educational campaign and enforcing egregious violations. (See ITT's Online Archives or 12/04/03 news, 03120410, for BP reminder on the enforcement of the hours-of-service rule, with links to previous BP summaries.) (FMCSA press release, dated 12/30/03, www.fmcsa.dot.gov/contactus/press/2003/123003.htm.)