Whaling
Japan has resorted to “skullduggery” in its quest to get the international ban on commercial whaling overturned, said New Zealand’s Dominion Post in an editorial. It bought the votes of several African and Caribbean nations, offering generous aid packages in return for those countries’ support at the International Whaling Commission. Gambia and Togo, for example, were long unable to vote on the commission because they had not paid their back dues. Yet just before a key vote last week, they managed to find the thousands of dollars they owed. The representative from Togo actually turned up “with a bag full of U.S. bills.” The result was a 33–32 vote to declare the ban on whaling unnecessary. While that vote alone won’t legalize the hunt immediately—a three-fourths majority is required—it does swing the momentum in favor of the whalers. Yet it’s hard to see why Japan is so adamant that it be able to slaughter whales. It can’t be a need for food: Few Japanese even like whale meat.
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