News for Today

[Jethro]

Australia to Monitor Japanese Whaling


Australia will send planes and a ship to conduct surveillance of Japanese whaling ships off Antarctica, the government announced Wednesday.
The craft will collect photographic and video evidence that would be used to decide if Australia will launch legal action to try to stop Japan's whaling program, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said.
Smith also said Australia will lead a group of anti-whaling nations in lodging a formal protest with the Japanese government within the next few days against Japan's plans to harvest more than 1,000 whales, including 50 humpbacks, in its largest-ever scientific whale hunt.
"We are dealing here with the slaughter of whales, not scientific research," Smith told a news conference. "That is our start point and our end point."
An Airbus A-319 used by the Australian government's scientific division in Antarctica would conduct surveillance flights over the Japanese fleet, which is due in its target area soon.
In addition, Australia will send a ship operated by Australia's Customs service to the area to collect potential evidence that could be used in international legal action against Japan.
The Japanese Embassy in Canberra said declined to comment.
Smith said Canberra was taking advice on whether it could launch legal action against Japanese whaling in a range of international forums, including the International Court of Justice, the International Whaling Commission and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea.
Each year, Japan defies a ban on killing whales in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary -- a massive feeding ground in the Antarctic Ocean that the International Whaling Commission has declared off-limits for commercial whaling -- saying its program is exempt because it is for scientific purposes.
Critics call the Japanese program a sham, noting the meat turns up for sale for human consumption.
Smith said he did not expect the tough new stance on whaling to create diplomatic problems between the Japanese government and the new government of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who was elected in November.
Smith declined to identify the other nations involved in the official protest, saying it was up to them to identify themselves.
An independent panel of Australia's leading international law experts concluded in May that the Australian government could take legal action to stop the Japanese whaling.
The so-called Sydney Legal Panel concluded that Japan's rapidly expanding scientific whaling program breached the U.N.'s Convention on the Law of the Sea, the Antarctic Treaty System, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species and the International Convention on the Regulation of Whaling.

[mikesinner]

I wish they could stop all illegal fishing in the world. It is killing our oceans.