Japanese coast guard and police will inspect the country’s whaling fleet this week after the ships’ heated clashes with conservation activists in the Southern Ocean earlier in the year, media reported yesterday.
Investigations so far have eyed possible charges such as assault and obstruction of business through threats, although authorities will probably have a hard time identifying suspects, Kyodo news agency said.
The fleet returns to Tokyo this week after a tumultuous hunting season marred by several confrontations with hardline anti-whaling activists.
Last month, members of the Sea Shepherd group threw bottles and containers of foul-smelling substances at a whaling ship in an attempt to disrupt the hunt, resulting in three sailors complaining of eye irritation.
The incident followed a high-profile standoff in January in which two activists boarded another Japanese whaling ship.
The clashes led to a spate of diplomatic complaints between Japan and Australia, with the Australian government, while strongly opposed to whaling, urging both sides to show restraint.
Australia has promised to try to stop Japan’s whaling, and is considering international legal action, although the two countries have agreed not to let the issue hurt ties.
Meanwhile, Japanese and Chinese coastguards stepped up the search yesterday for 13 fishermen who have been missing since their boat collided with a freighter in international waters off southern Japan.
“We have dispatched a plane and patrol boat to the area for the search but we have so far no report of any finds,” a Japanese coastguard official said.
The freighter, believed to be based in Hong Kong, and the Chinese fishing boat collided late on Friday about 350km west of Takarajima island.
The fishing boat sank with the loss of three crew with 13 more missing, but two others were rescued by another fishing vessel.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS