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North Korea launches three short-range missiles

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South Korea’s Ministry of Defense has detected three launches of short-range guided missiles by North Korea, it said.

Two launches were fired on Saturday morning and another one in the afternoon, reports Yonhap news agency. The missiles were fired from the east coast into the Sea of Japan, the report says.

They were likely shore-based anti-ship KN-2 missiles, the shortest-range of the kind that North Korea has, South Korean media believe.

Vermont could be first U.S. state to mandate labeling GMOs

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Vermont could be first US state to mandate GMO food labeling

Vermont seemed more likely than ever to become the first US state to mandate the labeling of genetically modified food (GMO) after a bill passed the state house, though legislators worry about a lawsuit threat from biotech giant Monsanto.

Similar bills seeking to provide consumers with labels at the grocery store that highlight what products contain GMOs have recently failed. In California, a ballot initiative which bypassed Congress after receiving 850,000 signatures was defeated in 2012 after a large consortium of biotech companies including Monsanto spent some $50 million on an ad blitz against the legislation.

As RT reported in late April, a new federal bill which would mandate the labeling of GMOs, the Genetically Engineered Food Right-to-Know Act, was introduced by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR). Though few expect such laws to pass on a national level, the bill was notable for its inclusion of a wider base of bipartisan support, with nine Senate co-sponsors and 22 cosponsors in the House.

Though sixty-four other countries, including EU members, China, Russia, Brazil, India and Japan already have existing regulations in place to label GMOs for consumers the issue is a highly contentious one in the US, both at the federal and state level.

According to Senator Boxer, more than 90 per cent of Americans support the labeling of genetically engineered products. Though the Food and Drug Administration requires the labeling of over 3,000 ingredients, additives and processes it does not consider GMOs to be “materially” different as they cannot be tasted, smelled or identified by consumers by other means.

Legally, part of the argument for labeling GMOs rests on the US Patent and Trademark Office determination that GMOs are in actually materially different and novel, at least for patents filed by the biotech companies that produce and sell these products.

As for Vermont’s bill, according to coverage by local public radio no state representatives had any opposition to transparency in food labeling, though some were concerned by a looming lawsuit by the biotech industry.

“Nobody else has passed a similar bill. They all seem to be waiting for Vermont to go first and lead the nation, ” said Representative Tom Koch (R-Barre).

“What they mean is they don’t want to risk their taxpayers’ money; they want us to risk Vermonters’ money. That is a $5 million to $10 million risk, and one I am not willing to take,” he added.

No representatives on Thursday argued against the concept of more transparent food labeling. The most frequent point of opposition voiced on the floor concerned a likely lawsuit from the biotech or food industries that the Attorney General’s Office estimates could cost the state more than $5 million.

Vermont’s legislation appears to have been watered down to partly guard against the threat of legal action taken by companies like Monsanto, exempting meat, milk and eggs from animals fed or treated with genetically engineered products, which would include GMO corn feed and the rBGH cattle hormone.

In the US genetically modified food is widely available. As much as 90 per cent of corn, sugar beet and soybean crops are genetically altered, and some 70 per cent of processed foods at a typical supermarket contain GMOs. Other common GMO items include tomatoes, potatoes and squash.

If passed by Vermont’s senate and signed into law, the new labeling requirements would likely not go into effect for another two years. Activists believe that the legislation stands a good chance, owing to its wide margin of support 107-37 in the house.

http://rt.com/usa/vermont-first-gmo-food-labeling-454/

Hashimoto stays in the hot seat

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BY ERIC JOHNSTON
STAFF WRITER
MAY 17, 2013
ARTICLE HISTORY
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OSAKA – International condemnation of Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto’s comment that the wartime sex slavery system was necessary continued Thursday, with the United States calling the mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) coleader’s remarks outrageous and offensive.

Meanwhile, the city of Osaka announced Hashimoto would meet with two Korean former “comfort women” next week in a bid to defuse the situation.

Next month, Hashimoto plans to travel to San Francisco, where he is scheduled to meet with Edwin Lee, the city’s first Asian-American mayor and the former director of its human rights commission. After that, Hashimoto plans to visit New York to meet with Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

But a U.S. official in Japan hinted Hashimoto could find himself an unwanted guest.

“As the U.S. has previously stated, what happened in that era to these women who were trafficked for sexual purposes is deplorable, and a grave human rights violation of enormous proportions,” the official said. “We understand Hashimoto is planning to travel to the U.S. We are not sure that anybody will want to meet him.”

Hashimoto will have a public meeting with the two former sex slaves on May 24 at City Hall.

The event was hastily arranged under tremendous pressure by members of Hashimoto’s own party and others in City Hall out of fear the controversy is damaging Osaka’s domestic and international reputation.

At the national political level, the fallout is affecting Nippon Ishin’s relations with key ally Your Party, which has been scrambling to reassure voters that its views on history, at least, are different from Hashimoto’s.

Your Party was planning to cooperate with Nippon Ishin in the upcoming Upper House election.

On Wednesday evening, however, Your Party leader Yoshimi Watanabe told reporters his party might end its election cooperation agreement.

“If Hashimoto’s historical views are the same views as his party, we’ll review our relationship,” Watanabe said.

New Komeito, which cooperates with Hashimoto’s local group, Osaka Ishin no Kai (One Osaka), in the municipal assembly, where they form the ruling coalition, is also furious.

New Komeito leader Natsuo Yamaguchi, in his email magazine Wednesday, called Nippon Ishin, with its coleaders Hashimoto and Shintaro Ishihara, who believe the sex slave system was necessary, a “reckless political party.”

“The good sense of the voters will flatly reject a party with these kinds of leaders,” he said.

As criticism continues, Hashimoto went on television Thursday to say it was inappropriate that he suggested the U.S. military in Okinawa should make more use of the legal sex industry as a way to curb servicemen’s sexual impulses.

“My way of expressing myself was poor. I talked about legal establishments, which didn’t mean I was promoting prostitution,” he said. “My understanding of America’s sex industry culture was insufficient. In America, if you say ‘sex industry,’ people immediately think of prostitution. . . . What I wanted to say was that I wanted to control sex crimes in Okinawa with a real argument,” he said, adding that he lacked “international awareness.”

But he stuck to his basic stance that the comfort women system had been necessary during the war and said international debate on the issue is important.

“If you get angry at the opposite reactions and don’t proclaim your views, then you can’t connect with people around the world,” Hashimoto said.

He told reporters Thursday evening he agrees with the Nippon Ishin Diet group that his comments regarding sex establishments in Okinawa were inappropriate. However, he also urged the U.S. to think about not just the human rights of the comfort women, but also the rights of people living near U.S. bases in the prefecture.

He also admitted his remarks would likely negatively affect his U.S. trip in June and some Americans may choose not to meet him. But he added that if U.S. human rights groups ask to meet him and discuss his comments, he would.

Why did Hashimoto open his mouth?

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The main question: Why did Hashimoto open his mouth?
BY ERIC JOHNSTON
STAFF WRITER
MAY 18, 2013
ARTICLE HISTORY
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OSAKA – Since Monday, when news broke that Osaka Mayor and Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) coleader Toru Hashimoto said Japan’s wartime “comfort women” system, which forced thousands of young females around Asia into sexual slavery, had been necessary at the time and that U.S. soldiers in Okinawa should use more prostitutes, the one unanswered question has been: Why did he say this?

Despite defending his remarks in hours of media briefings and more than 160 Tweets to his more than 1 million followers nationwide, there is no consensus in or out of Osaka on what the motivation behind his remarks might have been.

Public and media speculation has abounded, though. First there is the thought, voiced by his most ardent supporters, that Hashimoto sincerely believed these issues needed to be aired now and that many Japanese in power quietly agree with him.

They say he’s been made a scapegoat for saying out loud what Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s administration and many of his supporters privately think.

Then there’s the theory the remarks were a form of misplaced anger over the lack of Diet action on Nippon Ishin’s key goals.

Decentralization, local government reform, and progress toward ending the current prefectural system in favor of regional blocks, one of the primary reasons Hashimoto created a national political party, have made virtually no progress.

Or, there is a theory floating around Osaka that Hashimoto made the remarks out of a realization his party is extremely unpopular, wracked by internal descent and increasingly unlikely to achieve its original goals, especially integration of the city and prefecture of Osaka, which Hashimoto has pursued since 2008 when he became Osaka governor, and thus he had nothing to lose.

Perhaps, they conclude, he is tired of being a politician, wants to end his political career to return to the more financially lucrative world of television punditry, and figured the quickest way to do that was to make himself unpopular.

“Whether or not he intended to, the result of his remarks was that he self-destructed,” said Yuji Yoshitomi, an Osaka journalist and author of a book on Hashimoto.

Hashimoto visited Okinawa earlier this month and met with U.S. officials.

His suggestion to use more prostitutes reflects what supporters say is a direct solution to a problem he saw, while critics point to a history of inflammatory and discriminating statements. And then there was the timing of the comments, which came on the same day.

“The two issues became linked and people in and out of Japan wondered if Hashimoto wasn’t advocating a comfort women system for U.S. servicemen in Okinawa,” said one Osaka-based reporter for a major media outlet, speaking anonymously.

Hashimoto has vehemently denied he was advocating a modern-day comfort women system. But his anger at what he perceives to be American hypocrisy on human rights is clear.

In rhetoric that sounded oddly similar to some anti-U.S. base protestors, Hashimoto berated the U.S. for its Okinawa policy on his Twitter account Friday, implying his solution of sex establishments for U.S. soldiers would help solve a human rights problem.

“Due to the behavior of a small number of U.S. soldiers, the human rights of Okinawans are being trampled upon. I recognize America respects human rights. But human rights are universal, and the American people need to pay direct attention to the human rights of the Okinawans,” he said.

Ousting member over S Korean Prostitute claim

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AP, KYODO
MAY 18, 2013
ARTICLE HISTORY
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Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party), whose coleader, Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, has sparked global outrage for trying to justify Japan’s wartime sex slaves as well as his call that U.S. forces in Okinawa use the local sex industry, will expel a party lawmaker who claims Japan has “swarms” of South Korean prostitutes, officials said Friday.

The party member, Shingo Nishimura, a conservative Lower House lawmaker known for discriminatory remarks against women and foreigners, should also give up his Diet seat, said Nippon Ishin Secretary General Ichiro Matsui, who is also the Osaka governor.

In a party meeting earlier in the day to discuss how Nippon Ishin would deal with the repercussions over Hashimoto’s remarks, which had drawn scorn both at home and abroad, Nishimura blurted out: “There are swarms of South Korean prostitutes in Japan.”

Nishimura apparently later attempted to water down his rhetoric by saying it was “inappropriate to mention the name of South Korea.”

He also told Nippon Ishin he wants to leave because he doesn’t want to cause any more trouble. But the party rejected his resignation and will expel him instead.

“The remarks constitute a violation of human rights and verbal violence,” Matsui said. “We cannot let him stay in our party.

Matsui’s plan to expel Nishimura was endorsed by Hashimoto, who tried to differentiate himself from Nishimura, telling reporters, “I have no intention of insulting South Korea or the former ‘comfort women,’ ” using the Japanese euphemism for the wartime sex slaves, who in large part were from the Korean Peninsula during the time it was under Japanese colonial rule.

The incident comes as Nippon Ishin, the third-largest party in the Diet, tries to contain the fallout from Hashimoto’s recent remarks that defended the Japanese military’s wartime brothels.

Hashimoto also angered the U.S. by suggesting that American troops based in Okinawa should patronize legal sex establishments in order to reduce sex-related crimes in the prefecture.

Nishimura criticized foreign media for using the term “sex slaves” rather than “comfort women,” claiming the former term is part of “a campaign” to grab the attention of people in the West.

Hashimoto now blames public, snubs press

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KYODO
MAY 18, 2013

OSAKA – Nippon Ishin no Kai (Japan Restoration Party) coleader Toru Hashimoto, the Osaka mayor in hot water for apparently trying to justify Japan’s wartime sex slaves, said Friday that the public’s “lack of reading comprehension” has caused the current situation in which his remarks have been “misunderstood.”

The embattled outspoken politician also said he will shut out the media from any reporting opportunities except for his official news conferences.

Facing reporters at City Hall in the evening, Hashimoto blamed the media for perpetrating “big misreporting,” without delving into specifics. He stressed that he has never endorsed Japan’s wartime military brothel system but said his remarks have been taken to suggest otherwise.

“I hope people will have the ability to read and understand (my remarks),” he said.

Hashimoto tried to counter U.S. criticism against his sex-slave remarks by saying U.S. servicemen used Japanese women as an easy outlet for their sexual desires while Japan was occupied after its defeat in the war.

“I think the U.S. should look at what it did,” he said.

Touching on the infringement of women’s human rights, Hashimoto pointed out that Britain, France, Germany and South Korea are in no position to blame others. He didn’t elaborate.

Topless girls want to stop Barbie Dreamhouse in Berlin

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Topless women from female rights group Femen have caused a storm at the opening of the Barbie 'Dreamhouse' in Germany, screaming slogans and brandishing burning crucifixes, the charred bodies of the doll hanging from the cross.

Baring inscriptions across their bodies that read 'Life In Plastic Is Not Fantastic', a handful of women climbed on top of the giant pink shoes and other Barbie paraphernalia, before being led away by police.

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A group called "Occupy Barbie Dreamhouse," launched by members of the youth wing of Germany's far-left party Die Linke, plans to protest the opening too.

"Our protest isn't directed against parents who visit the Barbie House or against children who play with Barbies (although a real woman with Barbie's figure would be anorexic, wouldn't be able to walk, and would never get her period,) anti-dreamhouse activist Michael Koschitzki, 27, told Der Spiegel earlier this year.

"They present an image of cooking, primping and singing as if it were in some way life-fulfilling. The Barbie Dreamhouse is the expression of a conventional role model that isn't OK."

A post on their Facebook group today condemned the Femen activists, saying they only encouraged peaceful protest.

Sectarianism in Iraq stoked by Syrian war

Japan mayor says US troops abused women during occupation

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Japan mayor says US troops abused women during occupation

Agence France-Presse
Posted at 05/17/2013 4:00 PM | Updated as of 05/17/2013 4:00 PM

TOKYO - Osaka's abrasive mayor on Friday hit back at US criticism of his remarks on wartime sex slavery, claiming American troops abused Japanese women during their seven-year occupation.

Washington denounced as "outrageous" comments earlier this week by Toru Hashimoto, who said "comfort women" forced to provide sex to Japanese troops during World War II were a military necessity.

"Mayor Hashimoto's comments were outrageous and offensive," State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters, urging Tokyo to work with its neighbors to address the past issue.

Up to 200,000 "comfort women" from Korea, China, the Philippines and elsewhere were forcibly drafted into brothels catering to the Japanese military during WWII, according to many mainstream historians.

But Hashimoto, whose quick tongue and forthright approach has won him friends and enemies in equal measure, hit back on Twitter.

"Let me go straight to the point. When America occupied Japan, didn't they make use of Japanese women?" Hashimoto Tweeted to his million followers.

"I can't help but point out that it is unfair for America to criticise only Japan by putting aside acts by its own country," said Hashimoto, who has been mentioned as a possible future prime minister.

"(The United States) should face what the US military did against local women, in particular Okinawan women when they occupied Japan," he added.

US-led Allied powers controlled Japan until 1952 following its surrender at the end of World War II.

The southern prefecture of Okinawa remained under US governance for another two decades before being returned to Tokyo.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian John Dower is among credible sources who say American troops committed multiple rapes of Japanese women during the occupation and that press censorship muted reporting of these crimes.

Hashimoto also claimed that France and Germany were among countries that introduced wartime "comfort stations".

"It is a historical fact that the comfort station system was used during the Korean War and the Vietnam War," he Tweeted. He gave no details of this claim and did not say which side's soldiers used the brothels.

There is no mainstream evidence that modern militaries other than Japan's have employed a formal sex slavery system.

On Monday, Hashimoto prompted outrage at home and abroad by saying that soldiers living with the daily threat of death needed some way to let off steam and that this was provided by the comfort women system.

He said he believed the system was wrong and that former sex slaves deserved an apology.

The opinion that there is no proof of direct involvement in the sex slave system by the state or the imperial army is not uncommon on the right of Japanese politics.

© 1994-2013 Agence France-Presse

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/global-filip ... occupation

Second Appeals Court invalidates obamas recess appointments

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A second appeals court has joined the D.C. Circuit in ruling that President Barack Obama’s recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board were unconstitutional, concluding that some board actions taken in the wake of those appointments were also invalid.

The issue has far-reaching implications for both the NLRB and other boards, including Obama’s Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which has been a frequent target of conservatives and whose director was a recess appointment.

The 2-1 decision Thursday from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit (posted here) found that the presidential recess appointment power is limited to breaks between sessions of Congress, not breaks within sessions or other adjournments during which the Senate might meet in pro forma sessions. The reasoning mirrors that in a ruling of the D.C. Circuit Court in January.

(Also on POLITICO: Obama tries to stop the bleeding)

The 3rd Circuit case centered on decisions the NLRB made on the authority of three members including Craig Becker, who was appointed by the president on March 27, 2010, while the Senate was adjourned for two weeks.

The case was brought by a New Jersey nursing and rehabilitation center whose nurses were allowed to form a union by one such NLRB decision. The facility, New Vista, contended that the board’s decision was invalid because it did not have enough members active when the decision was issued because the naming of Becker to the board was not a valid recess appointment.

The NLRB must have three members participate in a decision for it to be valid, and the court found that because Becker was not appointed during a break between sessions of Congress, he was not a valid member of the board and thus invalidated the NLRB’s orders.

The opinion, written by Judge D. Brooks Smith, said the recess clause of the Constitution should be read not just to give the president executive power, but also to preserve the “advice and consent” role of the Senate.

In his dissent, Judge Joseph. A Greenaway Jr. said the majority’s reading of the clause was needlessly narrow and ignored the Founding Fathers' intent to give the president the ability to act when the Senate is not available to “advise and consent.”

The administration late last month petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn the D.C. Circuit Court’s ruling on the issue.

The decision comes the same day that the Senate Help Subcommittee held a hearing on five nominations to the NLRB. Sen. Tom Harkin said they nominations would be moved next Wednesday.