In May 2003, the United States, Canada, and Argentina initiated a formal challenge before the World Trade Organization (WTO) of the European Union’s (EU’s) de facto moratorium on approving new agricultural biotechnology products, in place since 1998. Although the EU effectively lifted the moratorium in May 2004 by approving a genetically engineered (GE) corn variety, the three countries are pursuing the case, in part because a number of EU member states continue to block approved biotech products. Because of delays, the WTO is expected to decide the case by December 2005. The moratorium reportedly cost U.S. corn growers some $300 million in exports to the EU annually. The EU moratorium, U.S. officials contend, threatened other agricultural exports not only to the EU, but also to other parts of the world where the EU approach to regulating agricultural biotechnology is taking hold.

This report compares current United States and European Union (EU) efforts in the area of green payments. Green payments refer to "payments made to agricultural producers as compensation for environmental benefits that accrue at levels beyond what producers might otherwise achieve under existing market and regulatory conditions" (summary). The report gives an overview of policies, programs, financing, and various other aspects of comparison related to the topic.

Interview with Joseph Andrew Brenner Sr., Hungarian-American immigrant to Weatherford, Texas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Brenner's personal experiences of childhood and education in Budapest, Hungary, having a career as a tool and die machinist, the involvement with his brothers in anti-Soviet and anti-Communist resistance movements, being captured by Hungarian political police and subsequent torture, his sentence in a Soviet work camp, escaping across the Austrian border, and coping with memories of torture. Additionally, Brenner discusses his father's service in the German Luftwaffe, memories of the Soviet Army entering Budapest in 1945, immigrating to the U.S., settling in Weatherford, his efforts to maintain connections with family in Hungary, and the process of earning his citizenship. The interview includes an appendix with photographs.