Submitted by rickeyre on
Something sinister has been happening to the dolphins that grace the waters off the Japanese township of Taiji. The quest for the horrible truth is the subject of this gripping documentary which was one of the popular favourites at last week's Sydney Film Festival.
Submitted by rickeyre on
A more detailed review of this brilliant documentary to come. In the meantime here is the trailer, followed by my Twitter review:
#sff "The Cove" Something sinister is happening to dolphins at Taiji. See this powerful, heartbreaking doco. Be angry. Be very angry. 9/10
Submitted by rickeyre on
Ah yes, the good old days of 1946. Japan was a ruined, beaten nation, humiliated after being forced to surrender at the conclusion of the Second World War. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were radioactive wrecks, Tokyo and many other cities devastated by more conventional bombing. The economy was ruined, the nation's infrastructure was ruined.
The Japanese people were starving. How to feed them until the nation's agriculture could be restored? The occupying powers (USA, UK, Australia etc... where does that sound familiar?) decided that the solution was to feed 'em whale!
Submitted by rickeyre on
"Any other scientific program in any other field that took this many samples without significant conclusions being reached would lose it's funding, and the same thing should happen here."
- Shane Rattenbury, Greenpeace International, on JARPA II (source: Greenpeace Defending the Whales blog, 30.5.07)
Submitted by rickeyre on
IWC meeting set to start, Japan seeks small-scale coastal whaling (Kyodo via Yahoo! Asia News)
"The International Whaling Commission will begin a three-day annual meeting Monday in Anchorage, Alaska, with Japan seeking the resumption of small-scale coastal whaling."
Submitted by rickeyre on
Japan is notorious for signing up countries for IWC membership in return for giving foreign aid. However, Great Britain has jumped on the branchstacking bandwagon in the name of the anti-whaling forces.
Britain has signed up Croatia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Greece (who, at least, all have a coastline), and have encouraged Costa Rica and Peru to pay their IWC subscriptions so that they can vote at the Anchorage meeting this week.
Submitted by rickeyre on
The Cubs drew level with the Giants in the NL wildcard race on Tuesday night. However, as I am writing this, the Giants are about to nudge in front again.
The Cubs have been whizzing around the place this week. Milwaukee on Sunday, Miami Monday, Pittsburgh Tuesday and Wednesday. They split Monday's double-header against the Marlins, made up of games postponed because of the plethora of hurricanes in the past few weeks.
Submitted by rickeyre on
It's on, or should that be off. There will be no professional baseball in Japan this weekend. Talks between the Japan Baseball Players Association and the owners broke down on Friday night.
At issue is the planned merger between the Orix BlueWave and Kintetsu Buffaloes. The association, concerned about player redundancies, opposed the merger then offered a compromise of deferring the merger till 2006 so that another club could take its place. The owners refused.
