Australian police boarded an anti-whaling ship involved in a high-seas clash with Japanese whalers and seized its logbooks and other material, the ship’s captain said yesterday.
Skipper Paul Watson said officers armed with warrants met his ship, the Steve Irwin, when it docked in the southern city of Hobart late on Friday.
The officers said they were authorized to seize video and audio recordings, photographs, notes, logbooks and navigational information, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said in a statement.
Australian police said they had launched an investigation at the request of the Japanese authorities, who this year complained after activists hurled bottles of rancid butter at the whalers and tried to board the ship.
They declined to say whether the investigation related to a specific incident.
“As a result of a formal referral from the Japanese authorities the AFP [Australian Federal Police] is currently undertaking preliminary enquiries into the events that allegedly occurred in the Southern Ocean,” a spokeswoman said.
She declined to comment on whether police boarded the ship or removed items.
Watson said Tokyo was applying acute diplomatic pressure to prevent the Sea Shepherd crew from releasing footage taken during this year’s whale hunt.
“It’s a very one-sided affair,” he said.
“The Japanese ships have not been boarded by the Australian Federal Police; they have not had their video and navigational data confiscated. They have not been questioned nor will they be, yet they violently attacked my ship and crew in the Southern Ocean,” Watson said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese