Japanese whalers were accused yesterday of injuring two activists in a high seas clash in the Antarctic and of deploying a new “military grade” acoustic weapon against protesters.
One activist was cut and bruised after being knocked over by a high pressure blast of water and the other was hit in the face by a metal ball thrown by the whalers, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society said.
Both men had been on small inflatable boats launched from the group’s ship, the Steve Irwin, to “harass the [Japanese whaling] fleet and to hurry them along,” Sea Shepherd said in a statement.
PHOTO: AP
The environmental group, which has been accused by Japan of “eco-terrorism” for its attempts to disrupt the annual whale hunt, said the whalers had used a new “acoustic weapon” against protesters.
“The factory ship the Nisshin Maru [No. 1] and the two harpoon vessels in the fleet are equipped with long range acoustical devices,” it said. “This is a military grade weapon system that sends out mid to high frequency sound waves designed to disorient and possibly incapacitate personnel. It is basically an anti-personnel weapons system.”
The Steve Irwin retreated when within range of the acoustic weapon but generally had “a very successful day,” captain Paul Watson said.
“All we need to do is to keep them running and to keep them from whaling and that is exactly what we are doing,” he said.
A spokesman for Japan’s Institute of Cetacean Research would not confirm that the fleet was using sound waves against the activists.
“We can neither confirm nor deny the strategies employed by the Japanese research vessels to protect themselves from the criminal actions committed by the Dutch vessel,” Glenn Inwood told Australia’s national AAP news agency. “We can say, however, that all legal means available will be used to ensure these pirates do not board Japanese ships or threaten the lives of the crews or the safety of the vessels.”
An international moratorium on commercial whaling was imposed in 1986 but Japan kills hundreds each year in the name of “research.”
THE ‘MONSTER’: The Philippines on Saturday sent a vessel to confront a 12,000-tonne Chinese ship that had entered its exclusive economic zone The Philippines yesterday said it deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea. Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Commodore Jay Tarriela said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111km) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon. “Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement. He later told reporters that Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area
RISING TENSIONS: The nations’ three leaders discussed China’s ‘dangerous and unlawful behavior in the South China Sea,’ and agreed on the importance of continued coordination Japan, the Philippines and the US vowed to further deepen cooperation under a trilateral arrangement in the face of rising tensions in Asia’s waters, the three nations said following a call among their leaders. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and outgoing US President Joe Biden met via videoconference on Monday morning. Marcos’ communications office said the leaders “agreed to enhance and deepen economic, maritime and technology cooperation.” The call followed a first-of-its-kind summit meeting of Marcos, Biden and then-Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida in Washington in April last year that led to a vow to uphold international
US president-elect Donald Trump is not typically known for his calm or reserve, but in a craftsman’s workshop in rural China he sits in divine contemplation. Cross-legged with his eyes half-closed in a pose evoking the Buddha, this porcelain version of the divisive US leader-in-waiting is the work of designer and sculptor Hong Jinshi (洪金世). The Zen-like figures — which Hong sells for between 999 and 20,000 yuan (US$136 to US$2,728) depending on their size — first went viral in 2021 on the e-commerce platform Taobao, attracting national headlines. Ahead of the real-estate magnate’s inauguration for a second term on Monday next week,
‘PLAINLY ERRONEOUS’: The justice department appealed a Trump-appointed judge’s blocking of the release of a report into election interference by the incoming president US Special Counsel Jack Smith, who led the federal cases against US president-elect Donald Trump on charges of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat and mishandling of classified documents, has resigned after submitting his investigative report on Trump, an expected move that came amid legal wrangling over how much of that document can be made public in the days ahead. The US Department of Justice disclosed Smith’s departure in a footnote of a court filing on Saturday, saying he had resigned one day earlier. The resignation, 10 days before Trump is inaugurated, follows the conclusion of two unsuccessful criminal prosecutions
RSS