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18 Thursday, February 21, 2013
World
Japanese whalers blamed for ship crash
AFP
SYDNEY
ENVIRONMENTAL campaigners
from the militant
Sea Shepherd group said
Wednesday a Japanese whaling
ship had rammed its vessels
in their worst confrontation
in the Southern Ocean in
three years.
Sea Shepherd said the
Japanese factory boat the
Nisshin Maru had deliberately
collided with boats crewed
by anti-whaling campaigners,
the Steve Irwin and the Bob
Barker.
“There has been the most
outrageous attack on the Sea
Shepherd Australia ships
today; multiple rammings of
those ships by the giant factory
whaling ship from Japan,”
co-campaign leader Bob
Brown said.
“Water cannon laid on the
ships and concussion
grenades lobbed on the ships
from the Japanese government
escort vessel.
“Japan through its loud
hailers... ordered Australian
ships out of Australian territorial
waters while they wanted
to proceed with their illegal
refuelling of the Nisshin
Maru... to allow them to continue
their illegal whaling in
this international and
Australian whale sanctuary.”
Brown said the incident
had destroyed a life boat on
the South Korean tanker the
Sun Laurel, which was refuelling
the Japanese factory
ship when the clash occurred.
He said it was the worst
confrontation since a January
2010 collision that caused the
campaigners’ vessel the Ady
Gil to sink, with at one point
the Bob Barker sandwiched
between the Nisshin Maru
and the Sun Laurel.
Sea Shepherd said the
Nisshin Maru rammed the
Bob Barker several times,
including from behind,
destroying one of their radars
and all of their masts and
causing it to lose all power
and issue a MayDay distress
call. Power has since been
restored to the ship.
“It’s extraordinarily dangerous
and it’s just a direct
break of international law,”
said Brown, the former leader
of Australia’s Greens party.
“Canberra needs to tell
Tokyo to haul off immediately
and to despatch naval vessels
down there to uphold international
law.”
Sea Shepherd’s Jeff Hansen
said the Steve Irwin had been
struck on the stern and right
hull.
“We’re now under attack
The Sea Shepherd vessel, Bob Barker (left) and Japanese fuel tanker Sun Laurel in the Antarctica, on Wednesday. (REUTERS)
with concussion grenades
being thrown by armed
Japanese coastguard in
Australian waters at our
crew,” he told ABC television.
“We’re very concerned for
the safety of our crew at the
moment.”
An official at the whaling
division of the Japanese government’s
Fisheries Agency
said it was checking the allegations.
The incident comes after
the US Supreme Court earlier
this month denied a plea
from Sea Shepherd to throw
out a lower court’s injunction
to stay at least 500 yards
away from the whaling vessels.
The Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society is chasing
the Japanese fleet hunting
whales off Antarctica as it
has done for years in a bid to
harass the whalers and prevent
animals being slaughtered.
Environment Minister
Tony Burke has described
Japan’s whale hunt as cruel
and unnecessary but has so
far rejected calls to send an
Australian government vessel
to monitor the hunt.
He said he was unable to
confirm details of the alleged
clash.
“The government condemns
so-called ‘scientific’
whaling in all waters and we
urge everyone in the ocean to
observe safety at sea,” he
said.
Australia strongly opposes
whaling and launched legal
action challenging the basis
of Japan’s so-called “scientific”
hunt in December 2010.
Japan claims it conducts
vital scientific research using
a loophole in an international
ban on whaling, but makes
no secret of the fact that the
animals ultimately end up on
dinner plates.
Sea Shepherd said its boats
were now escorting the Sun
Laurel north, behind the
Japanese vessels. None of its
crew have been injured, it
said.
Kenyan women yet to win equality
REUTERS
NAIROBI
VIOLENCE, a deeply chauvinistic
society and a lack of
cash are locking women out of
elected office in Kenya, east
Africa’s leading economy but
a laggard when it comes to
female representation.
The country’s new constitution
guarantees women a
third of seats in parliament,
but two and a half years since
its adoption, Kenya’s maledominated
assembly has still
not passed the necessary legislation
to put the constitutional
principle into practice.
In next month’s general
election only one of eight presidential
runners is female, and
women held just 10 percent of
seats in the last parliament,
half the sub-Saharan average.
“Society sees our place
being the kitchen and the bedroom.
Nothing beyond there,”
parliamentary candidate
Sophia Abdi Noor told
Reuters. Noor is the only
woman running for parliament
in the remote, arid
northeast.
Hailing from Kenya’s conservative
ethnic-Somali community,
Noor and her family
have been on the receiving
end of public taunts and curses
since her first foray into
politics in 1997.
“People abused my husband.
They told him, ‘Now
wear the skirt, let Sophia wear
the trousers’,” said Noor, who
in 2007 was handed a seat
reserved for marginalised
groups.
The northeastern region has
never elected a female lawmaker.
Across Kenya, from the fertile
slopes of the Rift Valley to
the steamy Indian Ocean
coastline, female political
aspirants painted the same
picture: politics is the preserve
of men in a country that struggles
to deal with women in
authority.
N Korea’s
nuclear test
heroes win
capital trip
AFP
SEOUL
NORTH Korea is rewarding
the scientists and workers
behind its recent nuclear test
with a fun-packed visit to
Pyongyang to enjoy “the
greatest privileges”, state
media said Wednesday.
Scientists, technicians,
workers and officials behind
the February 12 test received
a hero’s welcome when they
arrived in the capital, the
Korean Central News Agency
(KCNA) said.
Residents turned out along
the route with bouquets, banners
and posters to give them
a “hearty welcome”.
“They will spend significant
days in Pyongyang, enjoying
the greatest privileges and
preferential treatment,”
KCNA said, promising a “joyful
and delightful time” at the
city’s open-air ice rink and
roller skating centre.
The group will also visit the
Kumsusan Palace of the Sun,
which holds the embalmed
bodies of North Korea’s
founder Kim Il-Sung and his
son and former leader Kim
Jong-Il.
North Korea’s third nuclear
test was its most powerful to
date, with Pyongyang claiming
a breakthrough with a
“miniaturised” device.
While the outside world
was united in condemnation,
the test triggered days of
orchestrated celebrations and
mass rallies in North Korea.
The test followed a widely
criticised long-range rocket
launch in December, which
the UN Security Council saw
as a disguised ballistic missile
test.
Cameroon govt
orders rescue of
French hostages
AP
YAOUNDE
MILITARY helicopters are
searching for a vacationing
French family of seven
kidnapped in Cameroon
and security around the
region is being increased
amid tensions over
France’s role in western
Africa. Cameroonian
President Paul Biya
ordered tight security
measures and urgent steps
to free the hostages, who
include four children.
They were kidnapped by
armed gunmen in the
country’s far north on
Tuesday and whisked
across the nearby border
to Nigeria. A ministry
statement said the
Cameroonian government
is in contact with Nigerian
and French authorities.
Officials suggested the
involvement of Boko
Haram, one of Nigeria’s
Islamic extremist sects.
These are groups
who adhere to the
same fundamentalism
and who
have the same
methods, whether
it is in Mali, in
Somalia or in
Nigeria, who want
to create a lawless
zone.
The kidnapping came
as thousands of French
troops are deeply involved
in a military intervention
against Islamic extremists
who had taken control of a
big part of the West African
country of Mali.
French President
Francois Hollande, speaking
at a Cabinet meeting
Wednesday, called it an
“odious act” and expressed
particular horror that children
were involved,
according to his government
spokeswoman.
France’s defense minister
said Wednesday that
there was no proven link
between the French operation
in Mali and the
Cameroon kidnapping.
But, speaking on France-
2 television, Jean-Yves Le
Drian said: “These are
groups who adhere to the
same fundamentalism and
who have the same methods,
whether it is in Mali,
in Somalia or in Nigeria,
who want to create a lawless
zone” stretching from
the Atlantic across the
southern edge of the
Sahara to Sudan.
France’s government
warned French citizens to
avoid travel in northern
Cameroon after the kidnapping
and urged anyone
currently there to leave
immediately.
French Foreign Ministry
spokesman Philippe
Lalliot, in an online
exchange with reporters
Wednesday, said that in
northern Cameroon,
“There was never a security
incident linked to terrorism;
Nigerian terrorist
groups had never carried
out actions in this part of
Cameroon.”
A Cameroonian government
official said military
helicopters were being
used in the search.
The French gas group
GDF Suez identified the
captives as an employee
working in the Cameroon
capital of Yaounde and his
family. French media says
the children are between 5
and 12 years old.
Cameroon state television
cited government sources in
the locality saying that the
three adults have been separated
from the four children.
The family was on tour at
the Waza National Park in
Cameroon’s Far-North
Region before they were
abducted at gunpoint by
five gunmen aboard motorbikes,
according to paramilitary
sources in the area.
A Cameroon government
statement late Tuesday
night said the hostages were
abducted at Sabongari,
seven kilometers from
Dabanga, which flanks
Cameroon’s frontier with
Nigeria.
The statement did not say
whether the Cameroon government
is in contact with
the kidnappers.