Monday - June 14, 2010

What Was His Price?

We heard last week or so that TOTUS Obama is pushing efforts to “Save The Whales” by ending the 24 year old ban on hunting them. I guess his logic is that less whales will be culled by actual hunting then are being taken for “scientific research”. All the greenies, from the tree-huggers to the spotted owl lovers, have their knickers in a twist. So do lots of normal folks. Leave Moby alone!

Environmentalists, already peeved with the administration’s handling of the Gulf oil spill, are accusing President Obama of breaking his campaign pledge to end the slaughter of whales.

The Obama administration is leading an effort within the International Whaling Commission to lift a 24-year international ban on commercial whaling for Japan, Norway and Iceland, the remaining three countries in the 88-member commission that still hunt whales.

President Reagen (PBUH) helped put the ban in place, and since then the US has been firmly against whaling. I guess this is more of that Fundamental Change those 52ers were Hoping for.




But today the news story is that Japan has been blatantly bribing the International Whaling Commission, with bags full of money and sweet hoochie on the side! And, just as suddenly as Obama’s reversal on a very long standing US position, they too have reversed themselves!

Revealed: Japan’s bribes on whaling

A Sunday Times investigation has exposed Japan for bribing small nations with cash and prostitutes to gain their support for the mass slaughter of whales. The undercover investigation found officials from six countries were willing to consider selling their votes on the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

The revelations come as Japan seeks to break the 24-year moratorium on commercial whaling. An IWC meeting that will decide the fate of thousands of whales, including endangered species, begins this month in Morocco.

Japan denies buying the votes of IWC members. However, The Sunday Times filmed officials from pro-whaling governments admitting:
— They voted with the whalers because of the large amounts of aid from Japan. One said he was not sure if his country had any whales in its territorial waters. Others are landlocked.
— They receive cash payments in envelopes at IWC meetings from Japanese officials who pay their travel and hotel bills.
— One disclosed that call girls were offered when fisheries ministers and civil servants visited Japan for meetings.

Barry Gardiner, an MP and former Labour biodiversity minister, said the investigation revealed “disgraceful, shady practice”, which is “effectively buying votes”. The reporters, posing as representatives of a billionaire conservationist, approached officials from pro-whaling countries and offered them an aid package to change their vote.

The governments of St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Republic of Guinea and Ivory Coast all entered negotiations to sell their votes in return for aid.  The top fisheries official for Guinea said Japan usually gave his minister a “minimum” of $1,000 a day spending money in cash during IWC and other fisheries meetings. He said three Japanese organisations were used to channel the payments to his country: the fisheries agency, the aid agency and the Overseas Fisheries Co-operation Foundation.

Japan has recruited some of the world’s smallest countries on to the IWC to bolster its support. A senior fisheries official for the Marshall Islands said: “We support Japan because of what they give us.”
A Kiribati fisheries official said his country’s vote was determined by the “benefit” it received in aid. He, too, said Japan gave delegates expenses and spending money. The IWC commissioner for Tanzania said “good girls” were made available at the hotels for ministers and senior fisheries civil servants during all-expenses paid trips to Japan.

(April 24, 2010)

The International Whaling Commission has announced a controversial proposal to save thousands of whales by allowing the first legal commercial hunts in 25 years.

The proposal, to be voted on at an IWC meeting in Morocco in June, sets out a ten-year plan that would bring Japan, Iceland and Norway back under the control of the 88-nation body.

The three nations have continued whaling by exploiting a loophole in the international moratorium on commercial hunting, passed in 1986, that allows lethal “scientific research”. Together, they kill about 3,000 whales a year, ten times as many as in 1993.

The new proposal, released in Washington last night, would replace the ban with legalised quotas and would allow the IWC to monitor all whaling. It is an attempt at a compromise between whaling nations and others such as the US and Australia that have long been opposed to it.

...

The proposal allows 400 minke whales a year to be hunted in the Antarctic for five years, then lowers that limit to 200 for the following five years. It also allows limited hunts of other species including fin, bowhead and grey whales in specific regions.

...

Earlier today Japan said that it would push for higher quotas in the IWC plan.

Bought and paid, folks, bought and paid. And they’re not even trying to hide it. And as soon as this measure passes, there will be higher quotas on the way. You know it. And suddenly Obama has a change of heart? Makes you wonder, don’t it?



On the third hand, Japan, Iceland, and Norway have killed more than 35,000 whales since the moratorium went into effect in 1986. Call it 1500 per year. For “scientific research”. Of all the whale species, only the smaller Minke is not considered to be seriously endangered. Maybe the ban never worked too well to begin with; out beyond the line, in the empty corners of the oceans, the only rules that can be enforced are those backed up with sustained and accurate naval gunfire.

The chairman of the International Whaling Commission has fallen ill and will not attend its annual meeting due to discuss his proposal to control the annual whale hunt, a spokeswoman said Monday.

The absence of Christian Maquieira could complicate efforts to negotiate a deal to end the stalemate between pro- and anti-whaling countries that has continued since a moratorium on commercial whaling was adopted 25 years ago.

Maquieira circulated a proposal in April to allow limited commercial hunting for 10 years. He has said it would halve the roughly 2,000 whales killed annually by Japan, Norway and Iceland, which exploit loopholes in the whaling ban.

Spokeswoman Jemma Jones said the commission has informed the 88 member states that Maquieira would miss the meeting starting next week in Agadir, Morocco. It will be chaired instead by his deputy, Anthony Liverpool, who co-authored the proposal.

No details of the Chilean’s illness were released.

Something stinks here. Smells worse than a beached and rotting whale.

Posted by Drew458     on 06/14/2010 at 10:44 AM   
Filed Under: • Big Business • Environment • Obama, The One •  
• Comments (6) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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