Add a bit less secret shame .... ========== SWITZERLAND: November 20, 2000 GENEVA - A leading conservation group on Friday condemned Japan for its continued whaling, accused it of buying votes at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and asked the Tokyo government to stop backing the industry. The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said most members of the IWC opposed WWF Japan's "scientific" Antarctic whale hunts and that Japan - where whale meat is a prized delicacy - was exploiting loopholes in an international anti-whaling agreement. On Thursday, US President Bill Clinton told Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit meeting in Brunei that he hoped Japan would reduce the number of whales it hunts. The Japanese fleet set sail today for its 14th scientific hunt in the Antarctic under a provision in the 1946 treaty that allows small-scale catches for research. But, the WWF said, Japan had caught 500 whales so far this year. It took 439 minke whales in the Antarctic from December 1999 to April 2000, as well as 43 Bryde's, 40 minke and five sperm whales in the North Pacific in July and August, WWF said. The organisation added the Japanese fleet now aimed to catch 440 Minkes in the whale sanctuary around Antarctica. "It is a question of recognising that what happens to the great whales is a matter for the international community to decide, not just Japan," said Cassandra Phillips, WWF's specialist on whales in the Antarctic. "The whole Southern Ocean around Antarctica has been declared an IWC whale sanctuary. We will never be able to ensure a secure future for whales if some nations continue to exploit legal loopholes in the Whaling Convention for their own commercial purposes," she added. WWF accused Japan of "buying" votes in the IWC to try to reverse a global moratorium on whale hunting, targetting developing countries. WWF said Japan was offering development aid in return for IWC votes and had allied Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, as well as Guinea and Solomon Islands. These countries, along with Japan and Norway, support the resumption of whaling. There are a total of 35 votes in the IWC and decisions require a majority vote. A fleet of Japanese research whaling ships set sail for Antarctica on Friday from Shimonoseki. About 700 government officials, local residents and family members of the whalers and researchers attended a ceremony at Shimonoseki in southern Japan to send off the five ships. "The scientific data which are gained through these hunts are very important and the International Whaling Commission (IWC) also appreciates those data," Shoji Kawamoto, deputy director of Japan's Fisheries Agency, said at the ceremony. REUTERS > Message: 1 > From: "Mark Jones" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: "crl" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: Thu, 28 Dec 2000 08:39:17 -0000 > charset="iso-8859-1" > Subject: [CrashList] Japan's secret shame > Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > The world sees Japan as a rich, successful country. But the economy is stagnating, > big companies are going bust, and workers are facing the unthinkable - the end of > jobs for life. Jon Snow on an unreported disaster. > > Thursday December 28, 2000 > > The blade caught the morning sun. [snip] _______________________________________________ Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
