Posts Tagged ‘whales’

Reporting on whale meat theft

Last month, Greenpeace held a press conference in Japan announcing that its members had entered a delivery company’s distribution center in Tokyo on April 15th and intentionally walked out of the center with a package that did not belong to them. There’s a word for this in English: stealing.

Those involved in the theft were arrested yesterday for the crime they told the world they committed. The Japan Times/The Guardian reported their arrest with the following headline:

The use of single quotation marks implies that the Greenpeace members may have been arrested for something that was not a theft. Why? Greenpeace claims it grabbed the packages because they contained whale meat that Japanese whalers had embezzled and stolen.

Japanese authorities have investigated the matter and determined that they cannot prove the whalers did anything illegal. The whaling ship captain claims the meat was given to crew members as a souvenir, and apparently such an activity is legal in Japan. Stealing packages from delivery centers, however, is not legal in Japan.

Some people may think that the Greenpeace members justly stole the package to bring attention to the unjust killing of whales and sale of whale meat. That’s fine, but theft in the name of justice is still theft, and they shouldn’t be surprised if people who freely confess to taking things that don’t belong to them are arrested and charged with theft. Greenpeace does not have the legal authority to seize property it believes is stolen.

Why can’t the Japan Times clearly report a theft as a theft?

{note: News sites such as Earthtimes & the Yomiuri Shinbun have not used single quotes in their headlines.]

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd Snubs Japan?

Australia’s Prime Minister is going to visit China soon, and some people think he may be deliberately skipping a visit to Japan, reports the Sydney Morning Herald:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has brushed aside suggestions he is putting Australia’s relationship with Japan at risk because he will bypass Tokyo on his forthcoming world tour.

Mr Rudd, a well-known Sinophile, will spend four days in China during his imminent multi-country tour, that takes in the United States, Britain, Belgium and Romania as well.

The prime minister will leave his first visit to Japan as leader until July, when he heads to Tokyo to attend the G8 summit.

The opposition has seized on a report quoting anonymous sources suggesting Japan is irritated because Mr Rudd appears to be favouring Beijing at the expense of Tokyo.

The Japanese embassy in Canberra was not immediately available for comment.

Since the G8 summit is this summer, it might seem a bit excessive to visit Japan twice within a few months, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been some tension between Japan and Australia recently. Australia is one of the leaders of the anti-whaling movement, so it is often clashing with Japan over the issue. Although the Australian government recently agreed to investigate the activities of the radical animal rights activist group Sea Shepherd, Japanese internet anger towards Australia (among those who care about whaling) is still relatively strong.

Below are a couple video clips about Australia and whaling that have been popular on YouTube Japan in recent weeks.



[Clip 1] A segment from an Australian TV show [The Chaser's War On Everything] in which a comedian goes around trying to kill Japanese people for research:

[Clip 2] A pro-whaling video that attacks Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace:

Video clips comparing Australia’s kangaroo culls to Japan’s whaling have also been popular on YouTube, which may have led the Japanese media to devote coverage to the latest cull. Prime Minister Rudd has denied claims of hypocrisy, and the cull will probably go ahead as scheduled, assuming that authorities can break through the human shield activists are setting up.

IWC Unanimously Condemns Sea Shepherd

From the Asahi Shinbun:

LONDON–The International Whaling Commission (IWC) issued a unanimous statement here Saturday condemning the U.S. anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

It referred to the group hurling bottles at a Japanese research-whaling vessel in Antarctic waters last week, injuring three people.

Another whaling news story today mentions some of the bizarre research Japan has been conducting through its whaling program, including attempts to cross-bread cows and whales.

Paul Watson: Japanese Whalers Shot Me

Radical animal rights group Sea Shepherd clashed with Japanese whaling ships again today, and just as they had done earlier this week, Sea Shepherd members threw acid at the Japanese whalers. The Japanese whalers responded by throwing flash bangs at the Sea Shepherd ship:

Activists aboard the Sea Shepherd ship threw several bottles containing what is believed to be rotten butter, more than 10 paper bags of white powder, as well as several bottles containing an unidentified white liquid at the Nisshin Maru, according to Hideki Moronuki, chief of the Japanese Fishing Agency’s whaling section.

There were no injuries among the Nisshin Maru crew, he said.

The Nisshin Maru radioed warnings to the Sea Shepherd to desist. But the protesters did not, and the Nisshin Maru, which has Coast Guard escorts on board, responded by lobbing seven warning balls at the Sea Shepherd, Moronuki said.

Sea Shepherd leader Paul Watson followed up the exchange by making a stunning claim to the media:

“I felt an impact on my chest at one point,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. “I didn’t think too much of it at the time. When I opened up my Mustang survival suit, and I have a Kevlar bulletproof vest, there was a bullet lodged in.”

He said the impact left a bruise.

“If I wasn’t wearing my vest, it would have been pretty serious,” he said.

The Japanese government has denied reports of gunfire:

Foreign Ministry spokesman Tomohiko Taniguchi says no shots were fired.

“Paul Watson may say what he wants to say, but this is not what happened,” Mr Taniguchi said.

Glenn Inwood from the Institute of Cetacean Research – the organisation representing Japanese whalers – says crew members have clashed but no one has been shot.

“Japan has not fired at Paul Watson at all. Having said that, some retaliation has occurred and I’m waiting on some further information on that before we can give details,” he said.

Japan insists its whaling operations in the Southern Ocean are legal under scientific provisions of the International Convention on Whaling.

The Federal Government says it has received assurances that crew members on the Japanese whaling ship fired warning balls at the protesters, not gunshots.