12/19/06 WTO & China

Ag Secretary on WTO and China not going to punish U.S. I'm Greg Martin with today's Northwest Report. U.S. Ag Secretary Mike Johanns says we`ll likely see a big push for a gathering of World Trade Organization ministers in the early days of 2007. JOHANNS: There was talk actually in December; I don't see that happening just simply because we're running out of days in the month here, but there is talk after the first of the year. I'm not in control of the dating of this thing but I would guess sometime after the first of the year there'll be some discussions to try to test the waters if you will to see what the attitude is and see if countries around the world are ready to start thinking about how to resume the trade talks. China has agreed not to punish U.S. exporters immediately for violations discovered in meat and poultry shipments. Instead, the country will wait and allow the U.S. to investigate the problem. If a product is shipped to China that has some problem, the U.S. will be notified and will have 45 days to evaluate the problem. The United States shipped more than 51-thousand metric tons of pork and nearly 390-thousand tons of poultry to China from January through October this year. The U.S. doesn't export beef to China because of disagreements with the country over BSE regulations. Now with today's Food Forethought, here's Susan Allen. Red and green takes on a whole new meaning this season. If you have noticed the trademarked Product Red label on a shiny red Apple Ipod's or Armani or even red converse tennies you are looking at the efforts of the Rock Star Bono with pals Bobby Shriver and Oprah to raise money for the purchase of AIDES drugs for victims of the disease in Africa. Sure seems a win win to buy Product Red gifts knowing that that a portion of our holiday indulgences do something really worthy. The only wee wrinkle in this admirable crusade could be the Gap's "Do the Red Thing" campaign that paradoxically promotes wrong message by using scantily clad celebrities in provocative poses to create awareness for a disease associated with sex. Speaking of scantily clad, Victories Secret is now touting the fact that they too are going green. They announced they will no longer buy paper for their catalog from Canada's Boreal forests to help save caribou&.that announcement should bring a twinkle to Santa's eyes. Thanks Susan. That's today's Northwest Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.