Archive for the ‘Pacific Region’ Category
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
Lenore Taylor, 1/5/10
The government has decided to press ahead with legal action in the International Court of Justice to stop Japan’s ”scientific” whale hunt. Federal cabinet discussed the issue in Sydney on Thursday, a day after the Environment Protection Minister, Peter Garrett, rejected a ”compromise deal” from the International Whaling Commission to set long-term whale-kill quotas for Japan, Norway and Iceland and proposed instead a five-year phase-out plan for whaling in the Southern Ocean. Sources said the government decided to make good on its election promise in 2007 to take Japan to court.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Japan, Trade
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Saturday, May 1st, 2010
Peter Alford; 1/5/10
Anti-whaling activist and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society leader Paul Watson has challenged the Australian government to say whether it will comply with a Japanese warrant for his arrest. “If I go back and the Australians want to arrest me and put me into an extradition trial for the Japanese, then we’ll see what happens,” he said from New York. Mr Watson was unconcerned about a Japan Coast Guard request for him to be put on an Interpol wanted list: “Interpol does not act on politically motivated charges.” But he said Australian and New Zealand authorities also had responsibility to interview the skipper of the whaling patrol boat Shonan Maru 2 about a Southern Ocean collision in January that resulted in the destruction of Sea Shepherd’s power boat. Although Ady Gil was a New Zealand-registered vessel, Mr Watson claimed the Japanese had refused to make the skipper available to foreign investigators.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Japan, Pacific, Trade
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Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Joe Kelly; 29/4/10
Australian diplomacy will be tested as the Rudd government scrambles to muster support for a fresh push to end so-called scientific whaling in the Southern Ocean. Environment Protection Minister Peter Garrett has rejected a compromise plan by the International Whaling Commission that would allow some whaling in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary. IWC chairman Cristian Maquieira last week announced the proposal for limited whaling in the sanctuary and off the coast of Japan in an attempt to reach a compromise on the whale conservation issue. But Mr Garrett said the proposal was unacceptable and would set back whale conservation by decades.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Japan, Pacific
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Wednesday, April 28th, 2010
Rory Callinan; 28/4/10
Hostility has developed between Solomon Islands police and their mostly Australian advisers over everything from cultural traditions to access to cars, boats and even photocopying paper. Some islanders want the armed foreign officers and their military counterparts, who together make up the Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands, to be gradually withdrawn and deployed only for the most serious circumstances. The problems were uncovered in a comprehensive review of the policing component of the mission, which costs Australia about $120 million a year and has been deployed since 2003. Last year’s review involved four experts assessing the effectiveness of RAMSI’s Participating Police Force, which includes 224 Australian Federal Police out of a total of 283 officers helping to rebuild the Royal Solomon Islands Police Force.
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Solomon Islands
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Saturday, April 24th, 2010
Peter Alford & Dennis Shanahan; 24/4/10
Japanese whaling would continue in Antarctic waters for the next decade – with impunity from Kevin Rudd’s threatened legal action – under a proposal by the International Whaling Commission chairman. The proposal allows Japan to replace its controversial “scientific whaling” program with IWC quotas for an annual Southern Ocean kill of 410 whales in each of the next five years and 205 whales annually from 2015-2020. If approved by 75 per cent of members at June’s IWC meeting, chairman Cristian Maquieira’s proposal would undercut the 24-year worldwide ban on commercial whaling but resolve a bitter deadlock over continued hunting by Japan, Norway and Iceland. The commission’s 88 member countries have 60 days to negotiate further compromise before the Morocco meeting.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Japan, Pacific
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Thursday, April 22nd, 2010
Rowan Callick, 22/4/10
An Australian Pacific imperium is on view today – in a benign version – in Solomon Islands. It has cost more than $1 billion across six years. But unlike the more expensive aid program to Papua New Guinea, it is working, and still winning applause. Military vehicles run around the capital, Honiara, with the word army stencilled next to the image of a kangaroo. Flights to the country are crammed with Australian experts, keeping the hotels so busy that the King Solomon is building a special club room for them. The Solomon Islands government shifts into caretaker mode this weekend in readiness for a June election, when almost half the 50 MPs may lose their seats. But every political leader and 88 per cent of the 600,000 population, according to a new survey, insist that the highly visible Australian presence must continue.
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Tags: Australia, Human Rights, Solomon Islands
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Wednesday, April 14th, 2010
14/4/10
Scientists say they have found clear proof that meat from whales captured under Japan’s whaling programme is being sold in US and Korean eateries. The researchers say they used genetic fingerprinting to identify meat taken from a Los Angeles restaurant as coming from a sei whale sold in Japan. They say the discovery proves that an illegal trade in protected species still exists. Whale meat was also allegedly found at an unnamed Seoul sushi restaurant. Commercial whaling has been frozen by an international moratorium since 1986.
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Tags: Asia, Australia, Environment, Japanese, Trade
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Saturday, April 3rd, 2010
3/4/10
The prospect of a 15-year jail term facing anti-whaling activist Pete Bethune was unjust, Greens leader Bob Brown said yesterday. The New Zealander, in custody in Tokyo after illegally boarding a Japanese whaling vessel, the Shonan Maru No 2, was initially charged with trespass after his arrest last month. But the Japan Coast Guard has laid four more charges of assault, illegal possession of a knife, destruction of property and obstruction of business. Senator Brown said the Japanese whalers should be facing charges under Australian law for endangering lives. “It is absolutely unjust that Captain Pete Bethune is facing up to 15 years in prison in Japan,” he said. The Greens leader said the Australian Federal Police were investigating an official complaint by the Sea Shepherd group over the ramming and sinking of the Ady Gil.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Japam, NZ, Pacific
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Thursday, April 1st, 2010
Leigh Dayton; 1/4/10
In one of the world’s greatest migratory feats, four little shorebirds flew non-stop from Victoria to Taiwan in just over six days, covering 7600km. En route, the ruddy turnstones, Arenaria interpres, cruised at an average speed of 50-55km/h. Those are two findings from the first monitored migration cycle of the stocky wader, which spends the Australian winter along the southeastern coast of Australia and in New Zealand. Birds then fly north for about six weeks of feeding and breeding in Siberia, via Taiwan, a one-way journey of 12,400km. After the breeding season, three of the four birds went home following the same Australasian “flyway”. But one went its own way, flying east to the Aleutian Islands, then south to the Gilberts and then home to Victoria via the northern NSW coast, a round trip of 27,000km.
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Tags: Asia, Australia, Environment, Pacific
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Thursday, April 1st, 2010
Brigid Glanville; 1/4/10
The Federal Government says it is very concerned by New Zealand’s compromise proposal with Japan to allow a set number of whales to be killed. New Zealand has agreed to a plan that would give whaling countries the right to kill 1,500 whales a year, and its whaling commissioner plans to put forward the proposal at international talks in June. But Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett says Australia will strongly argue its case for a blanket ban on hunting.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Japan, NZ, Pacific
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Thursday, March 25th, 2010
Tom Arup; 25/3/10
A major environmental campaign to establish the world’s biggest marine national park across the ecologically important Coral Sea has been quashed by Environment Minister Peter Garrett. Mr Garrett yesterday announced that his department would assess the Coral Sea, home to thousands of turtles, whales and sharks, to establish a range of ”multi-use” and ”no-take” marine protection zones. But Mr Garrett ruled out the proposed single marine park saying ”the government is not intending to have one large no-take area across the whole of the Coral Sea Conservation Zone”. ”We believe that we want to meet the really important goals of conservation and protecting the environment of the Coral Sea whilst at the same time allowing for mixed uses,” Mr Garrett said.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Pacific
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Thursday, March 18th, 2010
Mark Metherell; 18/3/10
Rising alcohol abuse in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific islands, partly spurred by Australian beer, has prompted calls for alcohol companies to contribute more to counter the problem. A survey commissioned by the Australian National Council on Drugs found there has been a dramatic increase in alcohol-related violence and other drug problems in Pacific countries. The report, compiled by the Burnet Institute, names five countries – Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Fiji, the Marshall Islands and Vanuatu – where alcohol has been blamed for increases in domestic violence. Some countries, including Tonga and the Cook Islands, reported increases in illicit drug availability.
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Tags: Australia, Drugs, Pacific
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Saturday, March 6th, 2010
6/3/10
More than 20 years after the campaign to get dolphin-friendly tuna into shopping bags, supermarket shelves are still stacked with tuna that has been fished unsustainably. That’s according to Greenpeace’s new report card on the canned tuna brands in supermarkets. John West ”lacks credibility”. Sirena is ”one of the worst offenders”. Woolworths home brand is rebuked for selling overfished yellowfin. Greenseas gets the best ranking, but it could still try harder. Except for skipjack tuna, all Pacific species are overfished or endangered. And fishing methods introduced to protect dolphins, kill endangered turtles and sharks. But consumers would not know this from the label on the can.
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Tags: Asia, Australia, Environment, Trade
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Saturday, March 6th, 2010
Dennis Shanahan & Peter Alford; 6/3/10
The federal government risks a major diplomatic dispute by taking Japan to the International Court of Justice over whaling, Japanese officials have warned. But Kevin Rudd, aware of mounting Japanese antagonism, repeated his threat yesterday. “If necessary, we’ll take it to the ICJ before the next whaling season commences,” the Prime Minister said in an interview with The Weekend Australian. “I don’t think I can be plainer than that.” The likelihood of an Australia-Japan showdown escalated as key International Whaling Commission nations failed yesterday to agree on a compromise that would have allowed hunting to continue in the Antarctic for 10 years. The Florida meeting underlined that Australia’s hardline position was becoming isolated, heading into the critical IWC annual meeting in June.
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Tags: Australia, Envionment, Japan, Pacific, Trade
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Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
3/3/10
Japan will push for a resumption of commercial whaling, the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Hirotaka Akamatsu said. “To gain the right to resume commercial whaling, what and how much can we give?” he told reporters in Tokyo today before the closed-door talks of an International Whaling Commission in Florida. “We will continue our patient negotiations.” In 1986, the IWC slapped a moratorium on commercial whaling, but Japan uses a loophole that allows lethal “scientific research” for its annual Antarctic hunts, while Norway and Iceland defy the ban entirely. The three nations have since killed more than 30,000 whales.
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Tags: Australia, Environment, Japan, Pacific
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Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010
2/3/10
The tuna industry generates $4bn a year worldwide, but as a result the tuna is under threat from overfishing. Now leaders from eight Pacific island nations are planning to form a regional tuna cartel to increase their share of profits from the fish. Al Jazeera’s Laura Kyle went to Papua New Guinea, and found short term business gains are proving more attractive than long term sustainability.
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Tags: Fishing, Pacific, PNG, Trade
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