Friday, January 18, 2008 1:19 am | 
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Japanese crew members spraying water at the activists, before they boarded the whaling ship. | Photo: The Institute of Cetacean Research |
Anti-whaling activists handed over to Australian vessel
A Japanese whaling ship handed over two anti-whaling activists who had been kept detained on the vessel for two days to an Australian government ship on Thursday, according to Japan’s Fisheries Agency.
The two activists, both members of the controversial environmental organization the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, were detained and bound Tuesday after they had illegally boarded the Japanese whaling ship Yushin Maru No 2 in Antarctic waters.
The Australian Customs vessel the Oceanic Viking picked up the 28-year-old Australian and a 35-year-old British activists at around 10:20 pm, the Asahi Shimbun reports.
The two claimed they had boarded the Japanese ship to deliver a letter protesting the Japanese whaling in the area.
The Japanese government strongly condemned “the dangerous act of the campaigners” and said the campaigners threw a container with acid onto the Japanese vessel and tried to stop the ship by using a rope on its propeller, according to a Kyodo News report.
Japan’s Fisheries Agency said the activists had seemingly been prepared to be detained for a longer period as they had brought toothbrushes as well as changes of clothes on board the ship.
The activists had also brought two video cameras, pen and paper and Japanese dictionaries. Sources quoted by the Asahi Shimbun suggested the situation aboard Yushin Maru No 2 had been relaxed, and that the activists had asked their detainees for tempura, a Japanese deep-fried dish.
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While low-cost carriers have since long been successfully operating throughout the U.S., Europe, and southern Asia, Japan has seen very little of the low-price action.
I’m glad the whole drama is over, but I have absolutely no sympathy for the activists. At that age, they should know better than playing environmental terrorists.
Also, what is worse? CO2 emission throughout the world or the death of a 100 minke whales (whose population is proved sustainable)?
Australia hasn’t even ratified the Kyoto protocol, have they? Why don’t they “board” the Australian & US parliaments instead?
If Japan stopped whaling, Sea Shepherd would lose a huge amount of donation from their supporters. I want to see them to go bankrupt. I’m against whaling, but I’m fed up with Western nations’ arrogance on this issue. They’re just a bunch of hypocrites.
japan stay out of Australian waters,
you are only damaging your reputation here as a country that does not listen to others, well then japan i ask you why do you allow criminal society run your country are you a bunch of cowards or is it that you have no back bone to take on criminals. Well i consider your country top be a hidden communism without real leadership and so does the rest of the world fix your country first and leave the whales and yes i dont eat meat, you have direspected japan and the current and past goverments should be held accountable for the decades long that criminals have run japan such a sad people that dont fight for there rights sad or coward its not the japan that i learnt at school the samurai would never allow people to be govern by criminals?
Who cares about whales.. they are the same as a cow.. for FOOD. other nations stop telling them what to eat, not to hunt. Now, I want to try some whale meat!!
the area in question is NOT australian waters! They DONT own it! anybody who says it is, is from the HYPOCRITE CAMP..(Aust, NZ, greenpeace, seashepherd, etc) To clarify it is INTERNATIONAL WATERS.. or. .THE HIGH SEAS.. get it thru your solid thick skulls. or forget it all since Japan is NOT stopping whaling!
idiots its in australian waters that is why the australian gov is moniyoring for legal action in the international court so stay out and no im just a average bloke that is sick and tired of australia being nice to other nations that travel through our waters to commit illegal fishing and then trying to tell the rest of the world its research? in what how whale meat taste like. in all due respects japan stop lying and go and fish in chinas waters id like to see that, if you guys have the backbone i doubt it!
oh by the way im italian australian get that through your skulls
Ciali, nobody cares about your ethnicity, but maybe the fact that you’re being extremely rude. Stop calling people idiots and get your facts straight. You’re obviously brainwashed by the Australian media. Nobody but Australians think it’s Australian waters, that’s an Australian claim the rest of the world ignores.
great!
Ciali, you are ignorant, foolish, and embarrassing your entire country. I’m mot sure why you feel the need to identify your nationality at the same time as you illustrate the poor job your country did of educating you. You are probably the rudest Australian I’ve ever met, and as I have quite a high opinion of Australian’s I’ll simply acknowledge that every society has it’s fair share of fools. Now, to address your comments, first off, Japan is as far from communist as you can possibly get. Second, it has probably the LOWEST violent crime rate in the world. Look up the statistics. You’ll find almost all western countries fall anywhere from the middle to the very bottom. If you refer by chance to the government corruption that does exist in japan, as in the entire rest of the world, very much including your home country, then you might want to realize that modern politics have always been about greasing the wheels. In addition to having the lowest crime rates in the the Japanese have the worlds largest middle class, probably the worlds most polite, civilized, and advanced society. The Confucian ethics that permeate almost all East Asia are so incredibly embedded that in addition to their children (along with South Korea and Singapore) having consistently the highest rankings on education, the are taught respect, honesty, honor, humility, and general respect for other human beings that are entirely left out. Now, as I’m quite sure that you’re ignorant enough to believe Confucianism to be some bizarre religion, seeing as you are unable to properly punctuate or form complete sentences, let me inform you that it is a humanistic philosophy emphasizing respect for others and integrity. As for your remark about samurai, they have not existed since 1868 following the end of the civil war know as the Meiji where those same samurai that you speak of so fondly were eliminated by our western influences. As for their government, well, we, the west, mainly the US, but with the help of countries like the UK and AUS wrote their constitution for them following WWII, and forced it into place, at the same time abolishing all traces of traditional Japanese life. Of course, that didn’t hinder them, and they have all of the aforementioned qualities, and have had since the early 90’s. They moved from ruin to leading the world in less than 50 years, more than remarkable considering world history, and even more startling than things like the US’s rise from it’s civil war and Germany’s rise to power under Hitler between the first and second world wars. As for the whaling, that is a highly unfortunate at that I deplore, but it is an intrinsic part of their seafaring culture. If you would like to obtain any actual real information about Japan, you might try the book, “Confucius Lives Next Door” by the journalist, sociologist, and political analyst T. R. Reid, who spent the better part of a decade living there with his family in the nineties working for the Washington Post’s Tokyo office. Please do not trash people and cultures you know nothing about, not only is it rude and displays your ignorance, but it’s highly unbecoming of the congenial nature I’ve come to associate with the Australian people, a people and society I hold every bit as dear to my heart as Japan, and considerably more so than my own most of the time.
Plus one for RTallent!!
I’m an Australian and in all honesty…..the morons on the Sea Shepherd are just hopless, the Japanese being in international waters are fully within their right to shoot and kill all the idiots on that boat as pirates, seeing as what they are doing is an act of piracy.
I didn’t know Australia was even relevant. What goes on down under? A few minerals, horrible actors, and racists; Australia is pretty much worthless.
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