Trading Hookers for Whales?

The Sunday Times has unveiled the lengths the Japanese government goes to in order to bribe small countries to help it break the world whaling ban. Everything from aid to cash-stuffed envelopes to hookers come into play:

Japan denies buying the votes of IWC members. However, The Sunday Times filmed officials from pro-whaling governments admitting:

- They voted with the whalers because of the large amounts of aid from Japan. One said he was not sure if his country had any whales in its territorial waters. Others are landlocked.

— They receive cash payments in envelopes at IWC meetings from Japanese officials who pay their travel and hotel bills.

- One disclosed that call girls were offered when fisheries ministers and civil servants visited Japan for meetings.

Barry Gardiner, an MP and former Labour biodiversity minister, said the investigation revealed “disgraceful, shady practice”, which is “effectively buying votes”.

The reporters, posing as representatives of a billionaire conservationist, approached officials from pro-whaling countries and offered them an aid package to change their vote.

The governments of St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Republic of Guinea and Ivory Coast all entered negotiations to sell their votes in return for aid.

The top fisheries official for Guinea said Japan usually gave his minister a “minimum” of $1,000 a day spending money in cash during IWC and other fisheries meetings.

He said three Japanese organisations were used to channel the payments to his country: the fisheries agency, the aid agency and the Overseas Fisheries Co-operation Foundation.

Isn't it time for the G20 leaders, Harpo included, to put an end to this seedy Japanese farce?

Whaling Activists Held Hostage

In the Antarctic Ocean yesterday two Sea Shepherd activists boarded a Japanese whaling ship. They were there to inform the Japanese their whaling was illegal and to demand the ships left the hunting grounds.

The Japanese crew responded by seizing the activists and locking them up. Sea Shepherd claims the pair were first lashed to the ship's mast for two hours before being taken below.

Australia, which claims jurisdiction over these waters, has contacted Japan demanding that the activists be released and, as of yesterday, it seemed they would be returned to their own ship.

Now, it turns out, the Sea Shepherd crewmembers are being held hostage. Captain Paul Watson told Reuters that the Japanese have said they won't release the activists until the get Watson's undertaking not to use his ship against them (ramming) and to keep the Sea Shepherd vessel at least 10 nautical miles distant at all times.

The Antarctic Ocean Heats Up - Sea Shepherd vesus Japanese Whalers

The latest run-in between Japanese whalers and anti-whaling Sea Shepherd activists has been nothing if not dramatic.

Two of the Sea Shepherd crew - an Australian and a Briton - were grabbed as they attempted to board the Japanese whaler. A report from The Times of London claims the two were mistreated:

"The incarceration of Giles Lane and Benjamin Potts, of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, follows their attempts to board the Yushin Maru No 2 — a vessel engaged on Japan’s hugely controversial “scientific” pursuit of minke and fin whales.

According to their fellow activists, watching from a helicopter, the two men endured a two-hour ordeal during which they were strapped to the mast of the Japanese vessel.
With the ship now steaming away, Paul Watson, the captain of the protestors’ flagship, the Steve Irwin, told The Times that it was now “very hard to imagine getting our two missing crew members back any time soon”. He called on the Governments of Britain and Australia to demand the immediate return of its citizens."

Hours earlier an Australian court ruled Japan's whale hunt illegal and ordered the ships to leave the Antarctic hunting grounds.

First Period - Whalers 1, Sea Shepherd 0

Sea Shepherd's fleet has finally closed with Japanese whalers in the Antarctic.

Unfortunately the Japanese came through the first encounter rather well.

The Sea Shepherd vessels, MV Farley Mowat and MV Robert Hunter clashed with the whalers today sending fast inflatable boats in close to disrupt the Japanese ships. One boat, crewed by an Australian and American, sought to foul one ship's propeller but got too close and collided with the ship, damaging the boat.

When the helpless protesters radioed for help they found their radio didn't work. Meanwhile the rest of the small boat flotilla had passed them by and they quickly got smothered in freezing fog, snow and sleet. The men eventually managed to lasso an iceberg to shelter from heavy winds and keep them from drifting away.

When the disappearance of the men was noticed, the Japanese suspended their hunt and took part in a joint search with the Sea Shepherd ships. They did this even though Sea Shepherd protesters had thrown six litres of acid on their flensing deck injuring two Japanese crewmen.

Sea Shepherd is right to protest the Japanese whaling. It's right they're doing it and we should be grateful to them. But are their tactics defensible? Is throwing acid at another human being justifiable? What if the Japanese decide to use firearms to defend themselves?

To my way of thinking, the resort to acid and the subsequent Japanese decision to assist in the search for the missing protesters, gives the first round squarely to Japan - and that's just sad.