Keiser Report: Secrets of TTIP & TPP (E905)RT , Published on Apr 23, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dHZEjJbz0c
"Max and Stacy discuss that if man is what he hides, as André Malraux
said, then the EU is a corporatist, monopolist loving intellectual
land-grabber, for the EU hides secret trade deals. They also discuss
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan instructing his coalition not to
'forcibly' proceed with ratifying the TPP (another secret trade deal)
until after elections this summer as voters are against it. In the
second half, Max interviews independent Irish politician and MEP, Luke
'Ming' Flanagan, about the top secret TTIP, the Transatlantic Trade and
Investment Partnership. "
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Opposition lawmakers pile pressure on Koya Nishikawa (second from right) on Friday. Nishikawa is chairman of the Lower House special committee on the TPP. | KYODONational / Politics
Diet erupts in outrage as ex-minister's TPP manuscript reveals details Abe kept under wrapsby Ayako Mie, Staff Writer
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/08/national/politics-diplomacy/diet-erupts-outrage-ministers-tpp-manuscript-reveals-details-abe-kept-wraps/
"
The opposition Democratic Party boycotted Diet deliberation Friday on
the Trans-Pacific Partnership after it obtained a manuscript of memoirs
authored by former farm minister Koya Nishikawa. The book, which was to
be published next month, reveals details of what went on in
negotiations behind closed doors. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government has rejected repeated calls from
the DP and other opposition parties to disclose the horse trading that
went on in getting agreement on the TPP.
Apparently shaken by the stir his book has caused, Nishikawa later told
reporters he will not send it into print.
The book, titled "The Truth about TPP," was slated to hit bookstores in
May. Nishikawa chairs the TPP special committee that is currently
deliberating ratification of the TPP and related domestic bills. DP lawmaker Yuichiro Tamaki, who obtained the manuscript, first brought
up the issue in the Diet on Thursday.
Tamaki said the book reveals that U.S. negotiators offered concessions
one month before U.S. President Barack Obama visited Japan in April
2014.
The DP is indignant that lawmakers were unaware of this until now.
Documents they had access to were largely redacted and contained no
mention of the supposed U.S. offer.
On Friday, fellow DP lawmaker Rintaro Ogata asked in the Diet whether
officials at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries or the
Cabinet Secretariat cooperated with Nishikawa on the book, as it
includes details that were not previously made public.
Economic Revitalization Minister Nobuteru Ishihara, who replaced Akira
Amari as TPP minister, replied that he could not comment — not least
because the alleged manuscript may not be genuine.
DP lawmakers then walked out, saying the government had questions to
answer and that Nishikawa was unfit to chair the committee.
Kyodo News said the book alleges Japan brokered a deal with New
Zealand, which was seeking to expand its imports to Japan to more than
90,000 tons annually. Tokyo replied that it would agree to this if
Wellington helped to persuade Washington to remove tariffs on Japanese
cars much earlier than the U.S. was offering. Washington made no
concession, and the deal did not go through.
Ahead of the Upper House election this summer, the DP, the biggest
opposition party, is taking every opportunity possible to attack the
LDP. The latter is playing the election with an aim of revising the
Constitution.
Yet the DP, which was born only last month from the merger of two
parties, has already stumbled amid a political funds scandal involving
its policy chief, Shiori Yamao.
Although the DP sees the TPP as offering opportunities to attack the
ruling coalition, it is unclear how substantive the deliberations will
be.
Former TPP minister Amari is absent, citing a sleep disorder. He was
Japan's principal negotiator but quit amid allegations of
cash-for-favors involving ministerial staff.
It is also unclear if the Diet can summon Koij Tsuruoka, who was the
nation's chief civil servant negotiator, as he has been appointed
ambassador to the United Kingdom and will leave for London in less than
a month."
National / Politics
Abe ready to set aside TPP ratification for now to preserve standing in pollsby Reiji Yoshida and Tomohiro Osaki, Staff Writers
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/04/13/national/politics-diplomacy/abe-ready-set-aside-tpp-ratification-now-preserve-standing-polls/
"The ruling coalition may give up trying to get the Trans-Pacific
Partnership ratified during the current Diet session if resistance from
opposition parties means it is delayed beyond the end of April, a
senior ruling lawmaker said Wednesday.
In that case, deliberation on the agreement and related bills would be
carried over to a Diet session in the fall. The current ordinary Diet
session runs until June 1.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has instructed the coalition not
to "forcibly" proceed with the TPP deliberations, Kyodo News reported.
He is thought to fear a voter backlash in the Upper House election this
summer.
The potential postponement was announced by Tsutomu Sato, the Diet
affairs chief of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, speaking to
reporters at the Diet. But he added, the LDP-Komeito coalition has not
yet given up on seeking ratification by the end of the current Diet
session.
Later Wednesday, the LDP and the Democratic Party, the largest
opposition force, agreed to resume deliberations on the TPP deal and
will convene a session of the Lower House TPP special committee on
Friday.
Still, frustration remains palpable among many lawmakers.
The records of TPP negotiations, released by the government in response
to opposition demands, were largely blacked out, ostensibly to protect
secret parts of the multinational trade negotiations.
This has given ammunition to opposition parties. They have been
lambasting the government and boycotted all deliberations at the Lower
House on Wednesday.
LDP lawmaker Koya Nishikawa, the chairman of the special committee on
TPP, is now a major target of the opposition parties.
The DP obtained what it says is a 242-page draft of a book being
written by Nishikawa, in which he reveals details about the closed-door
TPP negotiations that the government has not disclosed. Nishikawa is a
former farm minister and is seen as maintaining influence over the
government's agricultural policies. The DP has refused to attend any TPP sessions unless Nishikawa admits
that the copy of his manuscript is genuine, because many of their
questions on TPP would be based on its contents rather than the scant
information released by the government.
Nishikawa has refused to authenticate the copy. But the signs are that
it is genuine: In conversation with a government official during
Friday's Lower House session, Nishikawa appeared to say so.
The conversation was picked up by a microphone that Nishikawa had
forgotten to switch off. The comment can be clearly heard in a video
clip posted online by the secretariat of the Lower House.
"It is the oldest stuff, not the one I (rewrote) in an organized
manner. The one I scribbled down," Nishikawa is heard saying.
Abe's top priority nowadays seems to be to secure a strong win in the
Upper House election this summer. Analysts say he is doing everything
he can to minimize political fallout that might weaken the LDP's
performance in the poll.
Last month, Abe announced a set of measures designed to help mothers
with young children who cannot find places at nurseries.
Abe unveiled the measures shortly after a blog by an anonymous mother
was widely cited on the Internet and secured media coverage. It
reflected the long-running frustration of many women forced to abandon
careers due to capacity shortages in the nation's public child-care
services.
Meanwhile, many right-leaning activists and politicians see the Upper
House election as a rare chance to gain political momentum for a
contentious goal: revising the pacifist Constitution.
Many such voters are the core supporters of Abe, the first prime
minister who has openly called for revision of the postwar Constitution."
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Open mike 09/04/2016Written By: notices and features - Date published: 6:00 am, April 9th, 2016 - 133 comments
http://thestandard.org.nz/open-mike-09042016/
"[ ... ]
Tautoko Mangō Mata 3
9 April 2016 at 7:41 am
More fallout from the secrecy of the TPP negotiations- in Japan. Good!
Diet erupts in outrage as ex-minister's TPP manuscript reveals
details Abe kept under wraps
BY AYAKO MIE
"The opposition Democratic Party boycotted Diet deliberation Friday ..
[ ... ]
The TPP process has been illegitimate, unethical and undemocratic
because the major stakeholders, the people of each state, were not
treated as stakeholders and were kept out of negotiations that
involved the trading of their laws, regulations and signing up to a
privatised, extrajudicial tribunal system that *claims precedence
over each state's own domestic judicial system.
*For the first time in treaty-based ISDS proceedings, an arbitral
tribunal affirmed its jurisdiction over a counterclaim lodged by a
respondent State against the investor.
http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/webdiaepcb2013d3_en.pdf
Surely this invalid process should make the agreement invalid. [ ... ] "
[pdf]http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/webdiaepcb2013d3_en.pdf[/pdf]
http://unctad.org/en/PublicationsLibrary/webdiaepcb2013d3_en.pdf