Yahoo News 13 Dec 07;
Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd pledged Thursday to protect whales in a bitter dispute over Japan's hunting of the giant mammals.
Rudd's centre-left Labor party, which won elections last month, had called while in opposition for Australia to send the navy to monitor Japan's whaling fleet.
Japan's ships set sail last month on the country's largest hunt yet which for the first time since the 1960s will kill humpbacks, one of the most popular animals for Australian whale watchers.
"We take seriously Australia's international obligations on the proper protection of whales," Rudd told reporters in Bali, Indonesia, where he was taking part in a UN conference on climate change on his first foreign trip as premier.
"We are therefore actively considering the appropriate measures for the collection of data which could assist in any future legal case which the government may embark upon," he said, as quoted by the Australian Associated Press.
He said he would offer further details next week but that he was not ruling out using "Australian assets" to document Japan's whaling.
Japanese officials earlier scoffed at Labor's suggestions of sending the navy against the whalers, arguing the catch is fully legal.
Rudd's defeated conservative predecessor, John Howard, also rejected involving the military, saying it was best to work through diplomacy.
Japan plans to kill more than 1,000 whales in the Antarctic on its annual hunt using a loophole in a 1986 global moratorium on commercial whaling that allows "lethal research" on the giant mammals.
Japan makes no secret that the meat goes on dinner plates and accuses Western nations, usually among its closest allies, of cultural imperialism.
Only Norway and Iceland defy the whaling moratorium outright.
Rudd, who took office last week, also laid a wreath at the Australian consulate in Bali in memory of victims of 2002 and 2005 bombings that killed a total of 92 Australians on the popular resort island.
Rudd earlier said he discussed stepping up security cooperation when he met this week with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Australian navy may track Japan's whaling fleet
Reuters 13 Dec 07;
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Australia's new government may send a navy ship to Antarctica to track Japan's whaling fleet and gather evidence to mount a legal challenge, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said on Thursday.
Japan's whaling fleet plans to hunt 935 minke whales, 50 fin whales and for the first time in 40 years, 50 humpback whales for research over the Antarctic summer, with the fleet already on its way south followed by anti-whaling activists.
"We take seriously Australia's international obligations on the proper protection of whales," Rudd told reporters on the sidelines of the U.N. environment summit in Bali.
"We would not rule out the use of Australian assets to collect appropriate data including photographic evidence concerning whaling activities," he said, adding a decision on sending a ship was likely next week.
Humpbacks were hunted nearly to extinction until protected by the International Whaling Commission in 1966.
Australia is a strong opponent of whaling and Rudd's government is mulling a legal case against Japan in the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Japan's fisheries agency, confident its whaling rights will be confirmed, has challenged any country to take it to the court for a binding judgment.
Japan's new ambassador to Canberra, Taka-aki Kojima, this week said Tokyo was aware of widespread anger in Australia over Japan's whaling plans, but said research whaling was lawful in accordance with international conventions.
Kojima said new Australian Foreign Minister Steven Smith had promised stronger action against Japanese whaling than Australia's previous conservative government.
Japan has long resisted pressure to stop scientific whaling and says whaling is a cherished cultural tradition.
The meat, which under commission rules must be sold for consumption, ends up in supermarkets and restaurants, but the appetite for what is now a delicacy is fading.
Rudd's center-left Labor government has flagged sending warships beyond Australian waters into the country's self-proclaimed Antarctic territory, not recognized by other nations and which includes a whale sanctuary.
Australian international law specialist Don Rothwell earlier this year warned naval patrols would breach the 1959 Antarctic Treaty, which deemed Antarctica to be a demilitarized zone, and possibly spark an international incident.
(Reporting by Rob Taylor, editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
