Japan is to resume research whaling in the Antarctic by the end of March next year, local media reported yesterday, despite a call by global regulators for more evidence that the expeditions have a scientific purpose.
The move came after a one-season suspension of its hunting in the ocean as the UN’s top legal body judged last year that Japan’s whaling there was a fig leaf for a commercial hunt.
Japan’s fisheries agency has since told the International Whaling Commission that it would resume whaling in the Antarctic Ocean by cutting annual minke whale catches by two-thirds to 333 this season.
Photo: Bloomberg
However, the International Whaling Commission’s scientific committee in June said that Japan had failed to give enough detail to explain why it wanted to kill almost 4,000 minke whales in the Antarctic over the next 12 years.
However, Japan’s whaling agency on Friday decided to go ahead with the plan, saying that it was scientifically adequate and no change was needed, Kyodo News said.
The Yomiuri Shimbun and other media outlets said Japanese whalers were expected to depart for the ocean possibly by the end of next month.
Photo: AFP
There was no immediate comment from the agency.
Australian environmentalists attacked the announcement, urging Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to stand up to Japan.
It comes as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering inviting Turnbull to Tokyo as early as next month for a summit, public broadcaster NHK said.
“The Australian government must step up and challenge the Japanese government’s illegal whaling,” the Australian Marine Conservation Society’s Darren Kindleysides said. “Japan’s Antarctic whaling has failed the test of international law, and the test of science, yet the hunt could resume within weeks.”
Despite international disapproval, Japan has hunted whales in the Southern Ocean under an exemption in the global whaling moratorium that allows for lethal research.
It makes no secret of the fact that meat from the mammals — killed ostensibly for research — is processed into food, and says the whale population in any case is big enough to allow sustainable whaling.
However, in March last year, the International Court of Justice ruled that the annual Southern Ocean expedition was a commercial hunt masquerading as science to skirt the international moratorium.
Respecting the judgement, Japan sent whaling ships to the ocean last season, but they returned with no catch.
It accuses opponents of being emotional about whales and disregarding what it says is evidence to support its position.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS