Legendary film maker George Lucas played political hopscotch this week, accepting a National Medal of Technology from President Bush on Mon. and then taking part in a Democrats-only innovation forum on Capitol Hill, where he poked fun at Vice President Cheney’s weekend shooting accident. Lucas is a vocal crusader for maintaining American innovation and competitiveness and securing more investments for high-tech training for young people. That’s a bandwagon lawmakers from both parties have jumped on in 2006. The Academy Award-winner is an advocate for free public higher education, saying it would “bring us hope and hope is what brings us innovation,” Lucas said. When the film maker graduated from college, someone told him “we've screwed up the world; now we're turning it over to you,” he said: “Now I can say, ‘We tried. We screwed it up, too, and it’s up to you.'” But the next generation of innovators start on “very fertile ground to make enormous changes,” Lucas told the audience, which included about 100 college students. That shift is going to require hard work, new technologies and outside-the-box thinking, Lucas said. “The system itself is going to show its age and its disregard for common sense and the basic needs of people,” he told the group: “It’s going to be up to you to figure out how you can solve those problems -- with actions, not with words.” The Bush Administration and congressional Democrats have offered plenty of words and goals in recent months. Bush laid out his new competitiveness initiative during his State of the Union (WID Feb 2 p4) and the Democrats have been parading their innovation agenda since late last year (WID Nov 16 p2). The difference, according to Lucas’s observations, is that the Administration is focusing on long-term objectives while House Minority Leader Pelosi (D-Cal.) and her caucus are fixed on achieving short-term successes. Lucas said Republicans and Democrats “should get together and work things out” since they all appear in accord on innovation. “They seem to agree that this a very, very serious problem for our country. It needs to be addressed and it would be great if someone did something about it.”
American Shipper reports that officials at the Port of New Orleans have stated that cargo levels are up to 80% of normal volumes before the city was devastated by Hurricane Katrina and subsequent flooding. Terminal operators state that breakbulk volumes are also improving, and predict that during the first quarter of this year breakbulk volumes will reach about 65% of pre-Katrina levels. (American Shipper, dated 01/24/06, available at www.americanshipper.com.)
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has issued a notice announcing that it will conduct a Special 301 out-of-cycle review (OCR) focused on whether Ukraine has fully implemented certain improvements to its legislation protecting intellectual property rights (IPR) and has otherwise strengthened IPR enforcement.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has issued a press release announcing that the U.S. is lifting the 100% retaliatory duty rates that have been imposed since 2002 on imports of certain fuel oils, fertilizers, pigments, footwear, diamonds, etc. from the Ukraine.
VeriSign will run network trials for voice-data Wi-Fi at 3 major universities, the company announced Tues. VeriSign said the networks will be “aimed at integrating on-campus Wi-Fi with any wide-area wireless carrier network” to enable seamless roaming between voice and data networks. Though the service can connect any device with an IP connection to a wireless carrier, VeriSign said it expects the service, dubbed Wireless IP Connect Service, to be used mostly for linking mobile and Wi-Fi networks.
The U.K. govt. may regulate websites selling sperm and human eggs to ensure safety and quality, the (London) Times reported over the weekend. The proposal appears in a Human Fertilization & Embryology Act consultation coming this week from the Health Dept. The law covers clinics and hospitals but not websites selling sperm and eggs, which now need not screen for HIV, genetic problems or the like. The govt. is expected to ask if it should change the law to ensure online companies meet the same standards as fertility clinics or bar the practice altogether.
The Supreme Court of Canada asked Parliament to strengthen e-commerce fraud laws, in the court’s its reversal of a fraud inducement case last week. Rene Hamilton had been accuses of sending “teaser” e-mails to more than 300 people, advertising for purchase software files that generated valid credit card numbers. Bomb- making and house break-in instructions were also included in the files, but not advertised in the e-mails.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) has issued a report to Congressional requesters that reviews how the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR), the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture (DOC and USDA), and the State Department pursued China's World Trade Organization (WTO) compliance in 2003.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced the release of a new guide aimed at helping the commercial agricultural transportation industry protect people, property, products, processes, information, and information systems by enhancing security, including security against a potential terrorist attack.
American Shipper reports that to cover the extra risk associated with the deferred payment of customs duties under the new periodic payment system, surety companies are raising the premiums on performance bonds used by importers and their brokers to guarantee duties will be paid to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The article notes one surety's view that for a typical importer that imports on a fairly regular schedule, they are looking at five times the credit risk for the same series of transactions. (American Shipper, August 2004)