Wiki and The Whales

+ Revealing cables from Wikileaks show Japan tried to muscle USA, to threaten Sea Shepherd with loss of it's tax-free status, if it kept harrassing the nasty Nippon whalers...and another one says Australia was willing to cut a compromise deal with Japan over whaling!! The Oz agreement would have overturned the ban on commercial whaling, in exchange for Japan reducing its so-called scientific research programme. Well, well, well!!!
If you cast your mind back to March 2010, you may recall I expressed serious doubts about NZ's own intentions at the IWC (International Whaling Commission), when Sir Geoffrey Palmer seemed to completely reverse this country's position on zero-tolerance for whaling and whale "resesarch".
It'll be very interesting to see if Wikileaks has anything about a behind-the-scenes deal being pushed by Palmer to the Japs at IWC...because his statements at the time seemed to be exactly the same as what the Wikileaks cables seem to be suggesting of Australia - namely, selling out!
+ Meanwhile on New Year's Eve, Sea Shepherd stopped the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean before it had killed any whales. Now it plans to chase the fleet to make sure no whales will be killed this year. This is the first time SS has stopped a fleet before any whales were killed.
Captain Paul Watson: “We're in pursuit of the Nisshin Maru (the factory ship) and the harpoon vessels are pursuing us, so we know there's no killing being done.”
The three Japanese harpoon vessels the Yushin Maru, Yushin Maru #2, and the Yushin Maru #3 attempted to block SS’s vessels the Steve Irwin, Bob Barker, and Gojira from pursuing the factory ship.
PS: 06 Jan.2011 - High seas cat-and-mouse...
SS says it saved 528 whales last year, slightly more than the 507 that were killed. The nasty Nippons are hoping to slaughter 1035 whales this season: SS has other ideas...