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Whale wars

Whale wars

  • Support the protesters activities

    Votes: 33 43.4%

  • Protesters are acting irresponsibly

    Votes: 29 38.2%

  • Mmmm Sushi

    Votes: 14 18.4%
  • Total voters
    76
  • Poll closed .
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Todays news on nine,

"New Zealand Prime Minister John Key says killing whales is akin to murder but he's supportive of reaching an agreement to allow some whaling if it reduces the numbers taken.

International Whaling Commission nations met recently to talk about a proposal to allow Japan, Norway and Iceland to openly hunt whales despite a 1986 moratorium on commercial whaling, but with the aim of reducing the total catch over the next 10 years. Japan currently uses a loophole to kill whales saying it is for scientific research while the other countries are not bound by the moratorium as they did not agree to it.

Australia has ruled out backing the compromise saying all whaling in the Southern Ocean should be phased out within five years, but New Zealand is open to it.

The status quo was not working, Key said on Monday.

"The first port of call has to be to try find a diplomatic solution that works both in the short term, and hopefully, over the long terms sees the elimination of whaling," he told Radio Live.

"No one wants to see whales killed. I mean there's the horrible sight of what equates to murder really when you see a mammal the size of a whale being killed."

However, phasing out over time may be the only way forward.

"If we can't get a blanket complete stop, then a phasing out so there's an eventual end to whaling is important."

Australia had campaigned domestically on the issue so was taking a strong position.

"But we are all keen to see progress. It's just a matter of how. I might add that the Americans who feel very passionately about this issue as well are very much in lockstep with New Zealand."

Key said he agreed with Whaling Commissioner Sir Geoffrey Palmer who on Sunday told TVNZ that taking a case to the International Court of Justice could take years and would be counter-productive if anti-whaling countries lost.

Australia has threatened to go the ICJ if by the end of the year diplomatic measures fail to stop Japan whaling in the Southern Ocean fail.

The next IWC meeting is in Morocco in June.

Japan, Norway and Iceland issue permits allowing them to catch about 3000 whales a year and about 1600 are killed commercially. However, Sir Geoffrey said the yearly kill figure was 13,500 before the moratorium.

Sir Geoffrey said the IWC was dysfunctional and if no agreement could be reached it would collapse.

If the proposal was agreed to, it would not lift the moratorium but would qualify it to allow a set number of whales to be killed.

"What I am saying is that we want fewer whales, many fewer whales killed than are being killed at the moment. Let's look at the facts, let's be realistic, let's not be emotional"

HE CALLS IT MURDER THEN SAYS "LETS NOT BE EMOTIONAL"
 
Australia has criticised New Zealand for backing a compromise pact to lift the ban on whaling.

Australia has expressed its alarm as support grows internationally for a pact to legalise whaling.

New Zealand has backed the compromise pact, which would lift the current ban on commercial whaling while reducing the number of whales killed by Japan under the guise of "research".

NZ had been one of Australia's staunchest allies in the fight against Antarctic whaling.

But now the country's whaling commissioner, Sir Geoffrey Palmer, says he'll support the compromise proposal at the next meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in June, the ABC reports.

Currently, commercial whaling is banned but countries can hunt whales in the name of science. Up to 1900 are killed each year.

Australia wants Japan to stop whaling, but Japan insists that it has the right to hunt whales.

The issue has been stuck in diplomatic limbo and there is an increasing push to find a compromise, alarming conservation groups.

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett spoke out against NZ's support for the compromise proposal.

"I am alarmed and very concerned that NZ would support a proposal that is flawed and represents a huge compromise to pro-whaling nations," he said.

"Australia cannot support the compromise package now being discussed in the IWC."

That package was loaded in favour of the whalers, Mr Garrett said.

Australia has vowed to take Japan to court if it does not agree, by November 2010, to phase out whaling in the Southern Ocean.

If the compromise proposal succeeds, then whaling will become legal and Australia would have no case.
 
Sir Geoffrey Palmer, the architect of the above proposal, would have to be one of New Zealand's most ineffectual Prime Ministers, having become Prime Minister by default because he was Deputy when David Lange resigned, as I recall it.
His tenure leading the country was mercifully brief.

He seems to have done an about face from when he was NZ's Environment Minister.

Yet another example of why retired politicians should be put out to pasture and never revived imo.
 
Macquack said:
Sea Shepherd captain Peter Bethune faces a 15 year prison sentence
http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/bre...-prison-sentence/story-e6frg12u-1225848943450

The Jap's would not be that stupid (would they?) to dish out such an extreme sentence.
Click to expand...

I think there is a good chance they will be (that stupid / ignorant), the whaling fleet is really the Japanese Government Whaling fleet so I guess it maybe seen as an act against the Government.

The Japanese have no feelings of guilt what so ever destroying the worlds fishery's, Bethune will do time.
 
Hmm I doubt that he'll do any time. The Japanese will just make it look like he will, and stretch it out and make a really big fuss, and in the end let him off. That's my I certainly might be wrong though.

Let's make a little bet, IFocus. If I'm wrong I will change my Avatar header message to "IFocus is credit to team", if I'm right you change yours to "Ato is credit to team". Whaddya say thar, matey? (We can keep changes for a month)
 
Ato said:
Hmm I doubt that he'll do any time. The Japanese will just make it look like he will, and stretch it out and make a really big fuss, and in the end let him off.
Click to expand...

Macquack and IFocus will be disappointed if he doesn't get a stiff sentence. They would love to have a martyr for the cause. The Japanese actually played into their hands when they arrested this guy.

Eco-nuts are masters of the dirty tricks game.
 

LOL I'll take you up in the spirit its offered but some how I think I am betting against probability given your Japanese connection good luck
 
What is the situation with Peter Bethune being dragged all the way back to Japan if the incident happened in "international waters" as claimed by the Japs?

I think "international waters" translates in Japanese to "Japanese waters".

For Gordon, if these are not Australian waters, they sure as hell are not Japanese waters.
 
I imagine it has less to do with what waters the incident occurred in and more to do with his boarding a Japanese ship without invitation or permission.
 
IFocus said:
LOL I'll take you up in the spirit its offered but some how I think I am betting against probability given your Japanese connection good luck
Click to expand...

Hehe, well I dont really have any inside info. Might take a while to play out, as the Japanese justice system is notoriously slow.
 
Rudd and Garrett are no longer going to take Japan to the International Court over whaling. Apparently it was only a symbolic gesture.
 
Calliope said:
Rudd and Garrett are no longer going to take Japan to the International Court over whaling. Apparently it was only a symbolic gesture.
Click to expand...
Only a symbolic gesture? Well, fancy that. Would never have thought it possible.
 
Julia said:
Only a symbolic gesture? Well, fancy that. Would never have thought it possible.
Click to expand...

Garrett is a massive fail should have stuck at singing with the Oils Greg Hunt shows much more promise petty he is in the wrong party.
 
Anti-whaling activist pleads guilty but denies assault
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/05/27/2910900.htm?section=world

On Thursday, a group of ultra-nationalist supporters gathered outside the court to make it clear they want Bethune punished.

One carried a placard calling for the Sea Shepherd activist to be hung
Click to expand...

Scum Japanese "rent a crowd" paid for by Japanese whaling interests.

The guy with the "Hang Peter Bethune" placard better not come visit 'down under' unless he wants to eat his whale sushi through a wired jaw.
 

I have never had much time for the Japanese.

Anyone who bombed Townsville, will need more than a few generations to cleanse their sins. And they never said sorry for their war crimes.

However , I must ask, in all this whale business, what did whales ever do for us?, never lifting a flipper to help us in the Pacific War.

I wonder whether the whale protectors were badly breastfed, or had some tragic event occur to them in childhood that they could be so attached to these plankton guzzling gits.

And what about the poor bloody plankton, nobody ever goes in to bat for them.

gg
 
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