Japan said yesterday it plans to ask Australia and possibly New Zealand and Chile to ban an anti-whaling protest ship from using their ports to refuel, heightening a cat-and-mouse game in Antarctic waters between Japan’s whaling fleet and the conservationists.
The Sea Shepherd group has said its anti-whaling ship, the Steve Irwin, has left pursuit of Japan’s whaling fleet after chasing it for 3,200km and is now headed to port to refuel. It suggested on its Web site it will seek a port call in Australia, but has not provided further details.
Japan, which considers the actions of the Steve Irwin to be tantamount to piracy, reacted yesterday saying it will ask countries where the ship might make port calls to refuse it entry.
“We are going to request a port closure against it,” Japanese Foreign Ministry official Chiharu Tsuruoka said. “They have obstructed our activities in the past, and their action is extremely dangerous. They are like pirates.”
Tsuruoka said Tokyo has not made such a request yet because it is not clear where the Steve Irwin will go. He said the possibilities have been limited down to Australia, New Zealand and Chile.
The Steve Irwin’s captain, Paul Watson, said he intended to dock in Australia to challenge that country’s support for his efforts despite the Japanese pressure for a port closure.
“After chasing the Japanese whaling fleet for over 2,000 miles, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ship Steve Irwin must return to port for fuel,” the group said on its Web site on Sunday.
“Although the ship is as close to Puntarenas, Chile as it is to Hobart, Tasmania and even closer to Dunedin, New Zealand, Capt. Paul Watson has decided that the ship will return to Australia,” it said.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
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