GHY Tradelines

(Canada.com)

Earlier this year a man claimed he had used his iPad to cross the border from Canada into the United States. Border Protection later denied Martin Reisch’s story, explaining he had provided a birth certificate and driver’s licence in addition to a scan of his passport.

Whether the iPad helped him cross the border or not, the buzz around Reisch’s claim forced us to imagine a world in which a digital scan of government document is as legitimate as a printed copy. Read more here.
 

(International Freighting Weekly – David Badger)

Twenty-nine countries threaten retaliation unless emissions trading scheme is abandoned

A group of 29 countries… put pressure on the EU to abandon its emissions trading scheme (ETS), threatening retaliation and raising the risk of a trade war. The countries, include the U.S., Russia, China and India, agreed to adopt “a basket of measures”, permitting each to choose “the actions that it finds most effective” to counteract the ETS”, said Valery Okulov, Russia’s deputy transportation minister, following a two-day meeting in Moscow.

The European scheme, which took effect on 1 January, legally requires all flights landing at any EU airport to take part in an emissions trading system to offset the carbon produced by its journey. Read more here.
 

(Chemical Watch)

The U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has concluded its review of the hazard communication standard submitted by the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) last October.  The standard will see the start of implementation of the Globally Harmonized System (GHS) of classification and labelling of chemicals in the U.S.

OSHA now has to incorporate comments made by OMB into a final document which will be published in the Federal Register in the coming weeks.

The OMB conclusion can be accessed here and the Rule is available here.
 

(CBSA)

This memorandum was formerly titled “Valuation for Duty Regulations”. No changes have been made to these Regulations; however, it now includes a hyperlink to these Regulations in a new Guidelines and General Information section and also includes new references to sources of the Canada Border Services Agency’s (CBSA) information.