Japan’s whaling fleet is once more on the run in Antarctic waters after being tracked down by ship-borne environmental activists, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said yesterday.
The group’s ship the Steve Irwin found the whalers after searching through fog and rough weather for nearly a week after a break to refuel in the southern Australian port of Hobart, captain Paul Watson said.
“We are seven miles [11.3km] from the fleet and approaching. We see the Nisshin Maru and two harpoon vessels the Yushin Maru 1 and the Yushin Maru 2,” Watson wrote on the group’s Web site.
This is the fifth year Sea Shepherd activists have trailed the whalers and attempted to impede their hunt, prompting Japanese authorities to accuse them of “eco-terrorism.”
An international moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986, but Japan kills hundreds each year in the name of “research,” but the meat ends up on dinner tables.
“When we found them this morning it looked like they were in the process of a whaling operation,” Watson told Australia’s national AAP news agency.
“As long as we’re chasing them they’re not going to kill whales,” he said. “Every day we can keep them from whaling and on the run is a victory for us.”
Watson last month offered to abandon Sea Shepherd’s aggressive tactics if Australia took legal action against the hunt.
The Australian government strongly opposes Japan’s annual kill of up to 1,000 whales in the Southern Ocean and has said it is considering taking international legal action against Tokyo to bring it to an end.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
‘DELUSIONAL’: Targeting the families of Hamas’ leaders would not push the group to change its position or to give up its demands for Palestinians, Ismail Haniyeh said Israeli aircraft on Wednesday killed three sons of Hamas’ top political leader in the Gaza Strip, striking high-stakes targets at a time when Israel is holding delicate ceasefire negotiations with the militant group. Hamas said four of the leader’s grandchildren were also killed. Ismail Haniyeh’s sons are among the highest-profile figures to be killed in the war so far. Israel said they were Hamas operatives, and Haniyeh accused Israel of acting in “the spirit of revenge and murder.” The deaths threatened to strain the internationally mediated ceasefire talks, which appeared to gain steam in recent days even as the sides remain far
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of