Canada and Greenland faced off against animal rights groups on Wednesday over accusations their annual seal hunts are cruel, as EU lawmakers considered proposals that could bar their seal products in the EU.
The European parliament’s vote on such legislation could take place as early as April, when the Canadian seal hunt gets under way.
The measure needs the approval of all 27 EU member states to become law.
The EU executive commission’s proposed ban targets countries that practice “cruel hunting methods.”
The law would only allow the import of seal products from countries that can guarantee their hunting practices are “consistent with high animal-welfare standards” and that the animals are killed without undue suffering. Special exemptions would also be allowed for Canada’s and Greenland’s Inuit communities.
Rebecca Aldworth, from the Canadian branch of the International Humane Society, showed lawmakers videos of bloodied seal pups being clubbed and skinned in Canadian waters, sometimes when they were still alive.
“You have before you a historic opportunity to save millions of animals from a fate you can’t imagine. Please stand up and do the right thing,” she told a hearing on the bill at the EU’s assembly.
Greenland Fisheries Minister Finn Karlsen, dressed in a traditional white Inuit sealskin jacket, insisted such a ban would “have severe and negative consequence for hunters and their families.”
“Our culture and our economy are at stake and it’s something I cannot accept,” he told lawmakers.
Canadian fisheries ministry representative Garry Stenson said the hunt “is humane, well regulated and sustainable” and that new rules for the hunt were under review to strengthen inspections, monitoring and enforcement of animal welfare rules.
Canada has said a ban could violate trade rules and it threatened action if a ban was introduced. It said a ban would decimate isolated east coast communities that are heavily dependent on the annual hunt.
Canada’s East Coast seal hunt is the largest of its kind in the world, with an average annual kill of about 300,000 harp seals.
British lawmaker Diana Wallis, who is drafting the EU assembly bill, suggested tough labeling rules were the only way to ensure sealing countries Canada, Greenland, Finland, Sweden and others adhere to EU animal welfare rules.
The EU proposal recommends a certificate and labels be provided by countries exporting seal products making clear seal products they trade meet strict EU conditions.
Several EU nations, such as the Netherlands and Belgium, already have their own bans on all seal products. The US has banned Canadian seal products since 1972.
Canada’s largest markets for seal products, such as Russia, China and Norway, are outside the EU. But sealing industry experts fear a ban would curb the demand for sealskins from the fashion industry and disrupt shipping routes.
Malaysia yesterday installed a motorcycle-riding billionaire sultan as its new king in lavish ceremonies for a post seen as a ballast in times of political crises. The coronation ceremony for Malaysia’s King Sultan Ibrahim, 65, at the National Palace in Kuala Lumpur followed his oath-taking in January as the country’s 17th monarch. Malaysia is a constitutional monarchy, with a unique arrangement that sees the throne change hands every five years between the rulers of nine Malaysian states headed by centuries-old Islamic royalty. While chiefly ceremonial, the position of king has in the past few years played an increasingly important role. Royal intervention was
X-37B COMPARISON: China’s spaceplane is most likely testing technology, much like US’ vehicle, said Victoria Samson, an official at the Secure World Foundation China’s shadowy, uncrewed reusable spacecraft, which launches atop a rocket booster and lands at a secretive military airfield, is most likely testing technology, but could also be used for manipulating or retrieving satellites, experts said. The spacecraft, on its third mission, was last month observed releasing an object, moving several kilometers away and then maneuvering back to within a few hundred meters of it. “It’s obvious that it has a military application, including, for example, closely inspecting objects of the enemy or disabling them, but it also has non-military applications,” said Marco Langbroek, a lecturer in optical space situational awareness at Delft
The Philippine Air Force must ramp up pilot training if it is to buy 20 or more multirole fighter jets as it modernizes and expands joint operations with its navy, a commander said yesterday. A day earlier US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that the US “will do what is necessary” to see that the Philippines is able to resupply a ship on the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) that Manila uses to reinforce its claims to the atoll. Sullivan said the US would prefer that the Philippines conducts the resupplies of the small crew on the warship Sierra Madre,
AIRLINES RECOVERING: Two-thirds of the flights canceled on Saturday due to the faulty CrowdStrike update that hit 8.5 million devices worldwide occurred in the US As the world continues to recover from massive business and travel disruptions caused by a faulty software update from cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike, malicious actors are trying to exploit the situation for their own gain. Government cybersecurity agencies across the globe and CrowdStrike CEO George Kurtz are warning businesses and individuals around the world about new phishing schemes that involve malicious actors posing as CrowdStrike employees or other tech specialists offering to assist those recovering from the outage. “We know that adversaries and bad actors will try to exploit events like this,” Kurtz said in a statement. “I encourage everyone to remain vigilant