someday i'll post good news..not today tho...whales

[Guest guest]

ok..so now i need to cross denmark off my list of countries to visit as well

 

June 19, 2006

 

Independent / UK

 

 

Japan Seizes Control of Whaling Group after Historic Vote

 

 

By David McNeill

 

The environment movement suffered one of its greatest reverses late last night

when pro-whaling countries, led by Japan, gained control of the International

Whaling Commission (IWC) and immediately began undermining the 20-year-old

international whaling moratorium.

 

In a stunning diplomatic coup, Japan and its allies, including Norway and

Iceland, won a voting majority in the IWC for the first time, as a result of a

remorseless 10-year Japanese campaign to secure the votes of small African and

Caribbean countries in exchange for multimillion-dollar foreign aid packages.

 

At the IWC meeting at St Kitts and Nevis in the West Indies, the pro-whalers

scraped home on a catch-all resolution that condemned the moratorium as invalid,

blamed whales for depleting the fish stocks of poor countries, and attacked

environmental pressure groups campaigning against whaling such as Greenpeace.

 

The vote on the so-called " St Kitts and Nevis Declaration " was won by 33 votes

to 32, with one nation - China - abstaining. The Japanese had been widely

expected to achieve a majority in the meeting after bringing three new states

into the IWC this year to vote on their side - Cambodia, the Marshall Islands

and Guatemala - but they had lost four earlier votes by narrow margins.

 

Yet that does not matter now. The simple 51 per cent majority they have now

secured will not allow them to scrap the moratorium directly - for that they

need a majority of 75 per cent. But for them it is an enormous moral victory,

and its significance was immediately realised by opponents and supporters of

whaling alike.

 

" The conservation of the world's whales has taken a huge blow today, " said a

spokesman for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society. " The ban on commercial

whaling, brought into effect 20 years ago by the IWC to save whales decimated by

decades of unregulated and unsustainable whaling, is now dangerously close to

being overturned.

 

" With Japan and other pro-whaling nations now holding the majority of votes, the

IWC will be driven to abandon its conservation and welfare mandate and refocus

exclusively on whaling. "

 

Britain, New Zealand and Australia immediately disassociated themselves from the

declaration and said that it carried no policy weight. " This is simply a

declaration of the views of pro-whaling nations, nothing more, nothing else, "

said Ian Campbell for Australia.

 

But the High North Alliance, the Norwegian pro-whaling pressure group, called it

" a historic victory for the pro-whaling nations " .

 

Denmark was one of 33 countries that voted in favour of a resolution by the host

nation St Kitts and Nevis, declaring that the " IWC has failed to meet its

obligations " and needed to be " normalised " .

 

Pro-whalers erupted into spontaneous applause when the result of the vote was

announced. The win stunned conservationists, many of whom believed that Denmark

was in the anti-whaling camp.

 

The vote is largely symbolic and does not mean an imminent start to commercial

whaling. But there was no hiding that it is a sign of the shifting balance of

power within the IWC. The environmental group Whalewatch called it a

" sea-change " in the two-decade-old struggle to end the 1986 moratorium

protecting the world's dwindling whale stocks from commercial hunting.

 

" The future of whales hangs in the balance, " said Leah Garces of the Whalewatch

coalition. " This is a wake-up call to the world. "

 

Ms Garces said the result should alarm Denmark. " A majority of Danes oppose

commercial whaling, so why is their government here promoting it? " she asked.

 

Conservationists said the vote showed that Japan could buy its way back to

commercial whaling. " The vote is hugely significant but hardly surprising, " said

New Zealand's Environment Minister, Chris Carter. " Japan has gone to enormous

lengths to get this result. "

 

Defending this corruption on which you are sat

You tell me what to think, you tell me this and that

`Freedom is O.K. you scum` but make sure it`s never used

In your defence of liberty I always stand accused