Mission & Justice

Sandra O’Malley; 8/5/08

Australia and New Zealand deny they have ditched the possibility of legal action to stop Japanese whaling. Rejecting a report that New Zealand had abandoned taking the legal route, both countries say it remains an option although a diplomatic solution remains their preferred course of action. Foreign Minister Stephen Smith, who is on two-day visit to Tokyo, insisted international legal action remained an option among Australia’s strategies to get Japan to stop the annual cull. “We’ll make a decision about the need for legal action in due course at a time of our own choosing, but we are very keen to exhaust diplomatic measures to try and bring this matter to a conclusion,” Mr Smith said.

(more…)

Dennis Shanahan; 8/5/08

Australia is likely to abandon its $1 million attempt to take Japan to the international court over whaling after New Zealand gave up its plans to use legal action to stop the annual cull. The Rudd Government embraced the use of the UN’s international court soon after theelection, using aircraft and ships to gather evidence against Japanese whalers in the Southern Ocean.  But the New Zealand Government has since discovered “significant difficulties” with taking Japan to the international court and has abandoned the tactic.

(more…)

Chris Johnson; 2/4/08

Kevin Rudd has selected Labor mate Sandy Hollway to be Australia’s first whaling envoy, ending a desperate five-month search for someone willing to confront Japan over its whale slaughter. An experienced diplomat and chief of staff to former prime minister Bob Hawke, Mr Hollway is known to most Australians as the face of the 2000 Sydney Olympics where he was head of the organising committee. He is also on good terms with Mr Rudd, appointed by the Prime Minister in March as chief mediator between Canberra and Port Moresby over the future of the Kokoda Trail.

(more…)

1/5/08

Japanese police have asked internet providers to censor websites giving information on what have become known as “detergent suicides”, following a spate of chemically-induced deaths across the country. About 50 people have reportedly killed themselves in the past month by inhaling toxic hydrogen sulphide gas, made by mixing washing detergent with other chemicals. The national police agency filed the request with the internet industry, telecommunications companies and cable broadcasters on Wednesday, saying “the risk is high for third parties to inhale the gas and, in worst case scenarios, die”.

(more…)

Justin Norrie; 26/4/08

As Chernobyl marks the 22nd anniversary of its nuclear disaster, Japanese fear they are building their own. Between the Pacific Ocean coastline and the rich farmland of Rokkasho, in northern Japan, stands a vast and controversial monument to man’s triumph over nature. The 12.7 trillion yen Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant, which can recycle up to 800 tonnes of nuclear waste a year for reuse, will launch the pacifist nation into a new era of nuclear power when it commences operations in July.

(more…)

Leo Lewis; 25/4/08

More than 120 people fled their homes yesterday when a 14-year-old Japanese girl took her own life by creating clouds of highly toxic gas. Her death, just a few days into the new school year, was the latest tragedy in what some in Japan see as an epidemic of copycat suicides among the young and internet-obsessed. The girl’s death brought to 70 the number of young people in Japan who have brewed the fatal concoction and killed themselves with hydrogen sulphide gas this year. Police fear that worse is to come: one of the products used to generate the gas has sold out in many stores in the past few weeks.

(more…)

Peter Ryan; 19/4/08

As another Anzac Day approaches, we will hear again and again the name of an obscure village in the mountains of Papua New Guinea: Kokoda. And as the Anzac Cove and the Gallipoli of 1915 recede further behind the mists of time and legend, Kokoda may come more to be the emotional focus of Australia’s military heart. The story of Kokoda can well bear that heavy weight. But it is extraordinary that so few Australians seem to have even a broadly accurate perception of what actually happened on the Kokoda Track between July and November 1942, and of what those events mean. Kokoda’s smallness is the first reality one must grasp when relating it to the huge scale of the Pacific war. This does not demean it or cut it down to size; it heightens the distinction. It is not at all silly to compare Kokoda with the classical heroism of Leonidas and his 300 Spartans, who defended the pass at Thermopylae in 480BC; nor with the gallant 600 who, in 1854, made immortal the Charge of the Light Brigade.

(more…)

15/4/08

Japan’s whaling fleet is set to return to port today after killing little more than half its intended catch in the Antarctic because of harassment by activists. The 8000-tonne Nisshin Maru mother ship is scheduled to dock in Tokyo today, ending a five-month voyage, while the five other fleet vessels will dock at various ports in the capital and in western Japan. Japan, which says whaling is part of its culture, had aimed to kill 850 minke whales and 50 fin whales on its annual hunt. It dropped an original plan to kill up to 50 humpbacks after coming under international pressure.

(more…)

Iran hangs four criminals; 14/3/08; http://www.jordantimes.com/?news=7139
Iran has hanged four criminals, including two members of a Sunni group blamed for a string of attacks in the southeast of the country, media reports said on Sunday. The two men, identified by only their initials A.M. and M.S., were hanged in the southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan for the capital offence of being “moharebeh” (an enemy of God), Kayhan newspaper reported. The local revolutionary court found them to be members the “terrorist group” Jundallah, and they were hanged in prison in the provincial capital of Zahedan. Jundallah has been behind a string of attacks in the province in recent years and is led by Abdolmalek Rigi, a shadowy young Sunni. Iran accuses its arch-enemy the United States of backing the group. Two other men convicted of abduction and murder were hanged in a prison in the northern city of Sari, the official IRNA new agency reported. The number of executions soared last year to 298, according to an AFP count.

(more…)

Justin Norrie; 12/4/08

Its title means “peaceful country”, but the award-winning documentary film Yasukuni — about Japan’s notorious shrine for war dead — is expected to draw a furious response from ultra-nationalists at its big-screen premiere. Militant groups have already sent death threats to the Chinese-born director, Li Ying, and vowed to attack cinemas, where management and police are preparing for protests. All five cinemas in Tokyo and Osaka that had planned to show the film about the Yasukuni shrine from today cancelled the sessions amid a campaign of intimidation by the ultra-nationalists, who have a track record of violently avenging “anti-Japanese” sentiment.

(more…)