Japan using quake disaster budget for whaling aid

[Playinghardball]

Source: Raw Story

Japan on Wednesday confirmed it planned to use some of the public funds earmarked for quake and tsunami reconstruction to boost security for its controversial annual whaling hunt.

Greenpeace charged that Tokyo was siphoning money from disaster victims by spending an extra 2.28 billion yen ($30 million) on beefed up security amid looming battles between the whaling fleetand environmental groups.

Japan’s whaling fleet left port Tuesday for this season’s annual hunt in Antarctica, with the coast guard saying earlier that it would deploy an unspecified number of guards to protect it from anti-whaling activists.

Fisheries Agency official Tatsuya Nakaoku said the extra security was designed to ensure safer hunts, and ultimately help coastal towns that largely depend on whaling to recover from the March 11 disasters.

More at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/07/japan-using-quake-disaster-budget-for-whaling-aid/

[dipsydoodle]

1. They appear to have mispelt hunts

which in this instance actually begins with the letter c. Reference to safety is superfluous : they're just a bunch of hunts.

[saras]

2. Kind of makes me want to send a military force to take the money back...

[PearliePoo2]

3. Japan asked Australia to protect their whalers from Sea Shepherd.

http://www.japantoday.com/category//view/australia-refuses-to-protect-japanese-whalers

SYDNEY —
"Australia said Wednesday it had rejected a call from Japan to provide more security for its whaling fleet in Antarctic waters."

"Environment Minister Tony Burke said Canberra had no plans to send a navy or Customs vessel to monitor events in the remote Southern Ocean, despite a Japanese call for action at an International Whaling Commission meeting."

“What Japan was asking of us was to provide a higher level of protection for their vessels simply because they are involved in whaling. There is no way that we could countenance something like that,”

"Japan says its whaling is for scientific purposes but Burke said Australia did not “buy for one minute this argument.”

“You don’t travel from one side of the globe to the other to harpoon whales and chop them up in the name of science,” he said.

[PearliePoo2]

4. More from the article:

"This programme can help it reconstruct food processing plants there… Many people in the area eat whale meat, too. They are waiting for Japan’s commercial whaling to resume.”

In February, Japan cut short its hunt for the 2010-2011 season by one month after bagging only one fifth of its planned catch, blaming interference from the US-based environmental group Sea Shepherd

Commercial whaling is banned under an international treaty but Japan has since 1987 used a loophole to carry out “lethal research” on the creatures in the name of science.

Japan says it is necessary to substantiate its view that there is a robust whale population in the world, but makes no secret of the fact that whale meat from this research ends up on dinner tables and in restaurants.

[GardeningGal]

5. I expected Japan to pull this.

Which is why I did not donate to the tsunami relief program. I don't want any of my money enabling Japan to continue this hunt.