Just two days after the World Trade Organization announced its final ruling against mandatory country-of-origin labeling for meat products, the House Agriculture Committee has approved a bill by a vote of 38 to 6 to fully repeal the labeling scheme.

Currently the law requires meat include a label which indicates where it is born, raised and slaughtered, but it is the segregation and recordkeeping requirements on Mexico and Canada which allowed the United States’ top trade partners to cry foul. The fourth and final appeal attempt by the United States failed and now allows Canada and Mexico to proceed with getting approval on retaliatory levels from the WTO.

House Agriculture Committee chairman Michael Conaway acknowledged in a conference business meeting that was evaluating the bill that some may say anyover the islands could veer into a larger confrontation.

‘A dangerous situation’

Mr Onodera said that in the latest episode, a Chinese Navy frigate directed its fire-control radar at a Japanese destroyer on January 30 near the islands known as the Senkaku in Japan and the Diaoyu in China that are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China and Taiwan.

The Defence Ministry said that the Chinese ship’s radar was turned on for “a matter of minutes" and that there was no communication between the two ships, before or after. It said the Japanese ship responded to the radar signal with “standard evasive manoeuvres."

“One step in the wrong direction could have pushed things into a dangerous situation," Mr Onodera told reporters about the use of the radar.

Japanese officials said the