Wanted: Japanese Whale Killers - Reward

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Wanted: Japanese Whale Killers - Reward

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

sent by Bill Koehnlein

Cash Reward: Find the Whale Killers

Al Jazeera - January 29, 2007
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/A572C546-1A84-47B5-87A0-88C40FD31397.htm


Cash for Sighting Japanese Whalers

An anti-whaling group patrolling off Antarctica has offered $25,000 to
any person or group that can locate a Japanese whaling fleet operating
in the area.

The US-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society announced the reward in
the midst of its "Operation Leviathan" mission to disrupt Japanese
whaling in the Ross Sea in the Southern Ocean.

"We're here to stop them from killing whales and we will do all we can
without risking human lives to do that," Alex Cornelissen, the captain
of the ship Robert Hunter, one of two Sea Shepherd ships involved in the
anti-whaling campaign, told Reuters on Monday.

Paul Watson, the captain of the second ship Farley Mowat, told local
radio that the New Zealand Government knew the location of the Japanese
whalers because its air force had filmed the fleet.

The Sea Shepherd ships have approximately three weeks before they must
leave the area to refuel and pick up supplies.

On the Sea Shepherd website, Watson said he believed the Japanese fleet
was within 850km of his ships.

Anti-whaling campaign

International environmental group Greenpeace set sail from New Zealand
on Friday to start its 2007 anti-whaling campaign, trying to come
between Japanese whalers and their prey in the Southern Ocean.

A global moratorium on commercial whaling has existed since the 1980s,
but Japan kills hundreds of whales each year under a scientific research
permit, which opponents say is used to whale commercially in disguise,
often with the whale meat ending up in high-end restaurants.

Iceland and Norway are the only countries to ignore the moratorium and
conduct commercial hunts.

Japan has called a special February meeting of members of the
International Whaling Commission in an attempt to help lift the whaling
moratorium, but 26 anti-whaling nations, including Australia, have said
they will boycott the meeting.

***

BBC News - January 26, 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6301681.stm


UK in Whaling Recruitment Drive

by Richard Black

The UK is stepping up attempts to secure an anti-whaling majority on the
International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Last year, pro-hunting nations gained their first IWC majority for 20
years.

The British government will publish a brochure this coming week aimed at
encouraging nations opposed to whaling to join the Commission.

It says whales are "sensitive, social creatures", with some species
risking extinction. Japan says these arguments are "old rhetoric and
half-truths".

Japan, Iceland and Norway, the principal pro-whaling nations, believe
that many stocks are large enough that hunting can be sustainable.

They dismiss arguments that whales are special and distinct creatures as
being relevant only in certain cultures.

The issue was given added urgency by Iceland's decision in October to
resume commercial hunting, a move which brought diplomatic protest from
Britain and its allies.

'Global responsibility'

The UK's recruitment brochure, which will be officially launched next
week, is the most formalised attempt yet mounted by anti-whaling
countries to regain the majority which they lost by a single vote at
last year's IWC meeting, held in St Kitts.

It says that protecting whales for future generations is a "global
responsibility".

"Some whales are particularly at risk of extinction because their
populations remain endangered following past exploitation from
commercial whaling," it continues.

In two forewords, the distinguished natural history broadcaster David
Attenborough writes, "There is no humane way to kill a whale at sea",
while Tony Blair makes a direct call to arms.

"We urge your government to join the UK and the other anti-whaling
nations in the IWC," writes the British Prime Minister, "to ensure that
our generation meets its global responsibility to protect whales."

The arguments contained in the brochure were dismissed by Japan's deputy
whaling commissioner Joji Morishita.

"It is always depressing to see the same old anti-whaling rhetoric," he
told the BBC News website.

"Its basic position is that commercial whaling automatically means
extinction. As we want everlasting whaling, which is totally different
from the past industrial whaling of western countries which regarded
whales only as an exhaustive industrial material, we would avoid
extinction at any cost."

Mr. Morishita also warned that the IWC could break up without agreement
on the eventual return to regulated commercial hunting.

Art of persuasion

Japan is regularly accused by conservation campaigners of using
fisheries aid to buy the votes of smaller countries in the IWC.

In reality, both pro- and anti-whaling blocs have sought to recruit
like-minded members in recent years.

At the close of last year's meeting, shocked by their defeat,
commissioners from European and South American countries told me they
intended to step up these efforts. New European Union members, and those
seeking membership, are natural targets.

The plan is clearly bearing fruit. Following representations from
anti-whaling countries including the UK, Slovenia joined the IWC last
September, and Croatia followed suit two weeks ago.

In theory, their accession overturns the pro-whaling majority

But IWC votes are unpredictable, and the British government's
recruitment brochure indicates its intention of securing forces which
can reliably out-vote Japan, Norway, Iceland and their allies.

- --
Bill Koehnlein
bill@xxxxxxxxxx

"My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the
battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed."
--George W. Bush, May 1, 2003

"...I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult, and
that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult--and we are
prevailing."
--George W. Bush, June 28, 2005

"Our cause in Iraq is noble and necessary....America is engaged in a new
struggle that will set the course for a new century. We can and we will
prevail."
--George W. Bush, January 10, 2007

+U.S. military fatalities through May 1, 2003: 140
+U.S. military fatalities through June 28, 2005: 1743
+U.S. military fatalities through January 10, 2007: 3017
+U.S. military fatalities as of January 29, 2007: 3080 (this figure
exceeds the number of people killed in all of the incidents that occurred
on September 11, 2001)

+Iraqi civilian fatalities through May 1, 2003: 1982
+Iraqi civilian fatalities through June 28, 2005 (estimated by
IraqBodyCount.net): 22,563 ? 25,560*
+Iraqi civilian fatalities through January 10, 2007 (estimated by
IraqBodyCount.net): 53,101 ? 58,704*
+Iraqi civilian fatalities as of January 29, 2007 (estimated by
IraqBodyCount.net): 55,073 ? 60,754*
+Iraqi civilian fatalities as of July 2006 (estimated by The Lancet): 654,965

*These figures are based on the number of fatalities cited in various news
reports and have been criticized, with much justification, for not giving
an accurate assessment of the real civilian death count. A much more
rigorous and statistically-reliable study, conducted by teams from Johns
Hopkins University, Columbia University and Al-Mustansiriya University,
and published in The Lancet (the British medical journal) in the Fall of
2004, put the figure at around 100,000 civilians dead. However, that data
had been based on "conservative assumptions", according to research team
leader Les Roberts, and the actual count at that time was credibly assumed
to be significantly higher. For example, The Lancet study's data greatly
underestimated fatalities in Fallujah due to the surveying problems
encountered there at that time. Most recently, a second Lancet study,
released on October 10, 2006, now indicates that 654,965 "excess" deaths
of Iraqi civilians have occurred since the outbreak of the aggression and
genocide committed by the United States against the people of Iraq.

Sources: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
http://icasualties.org/oif/
http://www.zmag.org/lancet.pdf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1338749,00.html
http://www.agoracosmopolitan.com/Iraq_war.html
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php4?article_id=6271
http://olm.blythe-systems.com/pipermail/nytr/Week-of-Mon-20041025/008279.html
http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/images/journals/lancet/s0140673606694919.pdf

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