Japan lying about whaling: Cousteau
By Jonathon Moran
OCEANOGRAPHER Jean-Michel Cousteau has accused Japan of lying, using scientific whaling as a cover for commercial takes of the marine mammals.
The son of the late diving pioneer Jacques Cousteau also believes Blue Whale, the largest species on earth listed as endangered by Australia, is being sold in Japanese fish markets.
"I am angry because they (the Japanese) are lying," Cousteau said from his US base today. "If they were telling the truth, we could have a conversation, but because they are lying and hiding what they are really doing it is very frustrating."
Japan is already taking around 400 minke whales annually under its scientific whaling program and this year has announced it will more than double that figure and include around 50 humpback and fin whales, which has angered many countries, including Australia.
"They are killing these whales for so-called scientific reasons, which is a pure bias," Cousteau, who is president and chairman of the Oceans Futures Society, said. "If you go to the fish market of Tokyo and you take samples of the whale meat, you will find out that some of it is even blue whale.
"The Japanese are slaughtering those whales and making little cube pieces which they very sneakily distribute in the kindergarten schools at lunchtime for little kids to get used to eating whale meat for what they say is cultural reasons."
Australia has declared a whale sanctuary within its Antarctic territorial waters but most countries do not recognise this claim. Much of the whaling activities take place in Antarctic waters.
The Japanese have been lobbying for a return to commercial whaling under the auspices of the International Whaling Commission and are also seeking IWC endorsement for its scientific whaling program. Japan failed in both of those objectives at the IWC meeting in Korea earlier this month.
The latest news to emerge about the meeting was the accusation that Japan had paid fees and fisheries costs for years in exchange for small island nations' votes for a return to commercial whaling. "It is very hypocritical what they are doing and it is unacceptable," Cousteau, 67, said.
That said, Cousteau is not completely against whaling. "If we are good managers, good business people, to allow our resources to go extinct is like allowing your business to go bankrupt and that is exactly what we are doing with our planet," he said. "As long as you manage things in a sustainable way, then it is okay, but we are not doing that."
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Japan under attack for inhumane humpback deaths
The Age
Andrew Darby, St Kitts and Nevis
June 19, 2006
AUSTRALIAN humpbacks face lingering deaths in the Japanese scientific hunt, where they will be harpooned with equipment little different from that used on much smaller minke whales.
Doubts about the humaneness of the humpback hunt arose with Japan's decision to refuse to release details of its trial kill of fin whales to the International Whaling Commission meeting at St Kitts.
Delegates have told The Age that Japan plans to employ the same 75-millimetre cannon used for minkes — but with a slightly larger explosive charge — on the humpbacks, which are about four times bigger.
The little evidence publicly available about Japan's minke hunt shows fewer than half the whales die instantly, and some can take more than half an hour.
Japan has already added to its scientific whaling quota 10 fin whales, an endangered species and the world's second-largest animal after the blue whale.
From the summer of 2007-08 it plans to take 50 fins as well as 50 humpbacks from stocks that swim along the Australian and New Zealand coasts in winter.
The move came as anti-whaling nations narrowly defeated Japan's latest effort to end the moratorium on commercial whaling, overnight Australian time.
New Zealand official Mike Donoghue said Japan had withheld information on its plans for killing the larger whales.
"Back in the days of commercial whaling, they used a 90- millimetre cannon on the fin whales with a harpoon that was half as heavy again," he said. "All they would tell us is they will put another 20 grams of penthrite explosive in the grenade at the head of the smaller harpoon."
Penthrite is a more powerful explosive than older formulas, but Mr Donoghue, from the NZ Department of Conservation, said the outlook was still poor for the larger whales. "In the case of the fin, it is a miniaturised weapon being used on an animal 10 times the mass of a minke whale," he said.
Animal welfare advocates said it was clear the bigger whales faced much greater risk of slow and agonising deaths through the use of such a weapon.
"It's obvious the Japanese are hiding this because their killing methods are appalling," said the Australian director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Mick McIntyre.
Environment Minister Ian Campbell released a report based on 12 minke kills videoed by Greenpeace last summer, which showed that death was potentially instantaneous in only two cases and in others took on average 10 minutes.
"I don't think anyone could describe it as anything other than absolutely inhumane," Senator Campbell said.
Japanese delegation leader Joji Morishita said his Government had decided to refuse to release details on the fin whale kill because of unconstructive criticism from inside the IWC. It would give some information to another forum, he said.
"Whale killing methods used for minkes is one of the most humane," he said. "It is approved by science, and I just wonder if the minister knows how long it takes for kangaroos to be killed in your country."
Senator Campbell said the 3.8 million animal kangaroo hunt was supervised under international protocols and — unlike Japanese whaling — carried out because of the huge numbers.
Japan suffered its third defeat of the meeting yesterday, with a failed bid to gain a quota of minkes for its coastal whalers.
Earlier it failed in an attempt to take control of the meeting agenda and impose secret ballots, ending fears that it would seize the voice of the IWC.
Australia believes the IWC should be modernised to protect whales and eliminate whaling.
"If Japan wants a fair dinkum debate about the future of this organisation, then Australia will be part of it," Senator Campbell told delegates from the 70- country organisation.
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Japan smitten by love of cute
The Age
Tokyo
June 18, 2006
Cute is cool in Japan. Look anywhere and everywhere: Cartoon figures dangle from mobile phones, waitresses bow in frilly maid outfits, bows adorn bags, even police departments boast cuddly mascots.
These days, Japan Inc, known in the past for more serious products like Toyota cars and the Sony Walkman, is busy exporting the epitome of cute - bubble-headed Hello Kitty, Pokemon video games, the singing duo Puffy and the Tamagotchi virtual pet, just to name a few.
But the obsession with things cute - or "Kawaii" (pronounced Ka-wuh-EEH) in Japanese - has the world's second biggest economy doing some soul-searching, wondering what exactly is making its people gravitate so frantically toward cuteness.
A big reason for the emerging debate: Cute-worship is gaining such overseas acceptance it's rapidly becoming Japan's global image.
American pop star Gwen Stefani often uses a Tokyo street-inspired look in her performances. Spirited Away, an adventure story of a doe-eyed girl by Hayao Miyazaki won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film.
Nintendo Co, which makes Super Mario and Pokemon video games, recorded about Y350 billion ($A4.11 billion) in US and European sales in fiscal 2005.
Japan's entertainment content business totals some Y13 trillion ($A152.8 billion), or about two-thirds of Toyota's sales, according to the Digital Content Association of Japan.
Sceptics here say Japan's pursuit of cute is a sign of an infantile mentality and worry that Japanese culture - historically praised for exquisite understatement as sparse rock gardens and woodblock prints - may be headed toward doom.
Hiroto Murasawa, an expert on the culture of beauty at Osaka Shoin Women's University, believes that cute proves the Japanese simply don't want to grow up. "It's a mentality that breeds non-assertion," he said.
On the other hand, Tomoyuki Sugiyama, author of Cool Japan, believes cute is rooted in Japan's harmony-loving culture.
Collecting miniatures such as mementos for mobile phones can be traced back 400 years to the Edo Period, when tiny carved "netsuke" charms were wildly popular, said Sugiyama, president of Digital Hollywood, a Tokyo school for computer-graphics designers, video artists and game creators.
"Japanese are seeking a spiritual peace and an escape from brutal reality through cute things," he said.
Model and actress Yuri Ebihara, 26, widely viewed as the personification of cute, commands such influence that when she sports lacy pastel skirts in a fashion magazine, they become instant sellouts.
"I make it a point never to forget to smile," said Ebihara, often seen on TV ads and billboards. "If someone doesn't find me cute, I want to know why because then I'll work on it to get better at being cute."
Yutaka Onishi, editor in chief of CanCam, the 650,000-circulation magazine that propelled Ebihara to stardom, says the girl-next-door Ebihara, standing a demure 168 cm, is pioneering a look that's distinct from the tall sexy beauties of the West.
"Cute is that exclamation from the soul of Japan's younger generation," Onishi said.
Through her work, artist Ryoko Sato is raising questions on how lines get drawn between what's cute and what's not. She shrugs off much of pop culture as empty fluff and seeks to delve deeper through works like The Kiss, a photo of a skinned mouse next to its furry hide, a statement on how cute is skin-deep.
"To me, cute always in my work couples with the grotesque," she said. "There's always a dark side to it."
Still, such naysayers are a minority.
A survey on beauty standards by cosmetics company Kanebo found that women in their 20s and early 30s favour the cute look, accentuated by a childish round face, rather than the elegant face, compared to women over 35.
"Japanese women see value in youth and want to combine childishness and cuteness with sexiness and glamour," says Sakae Nonomura, a Kanebo researcher. "Cute has now grown so widespread that various types of cute coexist."
Indeed, Japanese have come up with nuances of cute and use phrases such as "erotic-cute" and "grotesque-cute" in conversation.
Hideki Kojima, 38, a garbage collector, is such a believer in cute he patronises a "maid cafe," one of several that have sprung up in Tokyo, where waitresses in maid outfits greet customers by squeaking: "Welcome home, master."
The cafe serves food and allows customers to take photos and play games with the maids. Kojima sometimes goes there three times a day, dropping as much as Y10,000 ($A117) a visit for a chance to gawk at the maids. Prostitution and other sexual favours are strictly off-limits.
"They're cute," Kojima says. "It can't really be explained in words."
Nobuyoshi Kurita, sociology professor at Tokyo's Musashi University, says cute is a "magic term" that encompasses everything that's acceptable and desirable - this nation's answer to the West. The cute concept, he said, could determine Japan's cultural influence on the world.
"Where cute goes determines the future of Japan," he said, adding that Japan's cute offerings may one day command the respect of European luxury goods. "If it succeeds, Japan's future will be bright."
http://www.kaiusdesign.com/images/whale_sm.jpg
Title: Whale-Flip!
Client: Greenpeace International
Korea has no official whaling programme, so if a whale or dolphin is found dead in a fishing net, it can be sold for huge prices on the open market. Possibly as a result of this, Korea has one of the highest cetacean bycatch incidents in the world. Greenpeace has teamed up with the Korean Federation for the Environment Movement to highlight the plight of the whales and raise awareness of these issues.
A joint project between Kaius and Richard Salter 'Whale-Flip!' is a game to bring Korean children to the Greenpeace site and promote the cause in a positive way. The game is simple, fun and cute, designed to appeal to children of all ages.
http://activism.greenpeace.org/whaleflip/
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