Did Norway and Iceland try to force whale meat on Japan?
As we might have mentioned a few days ago, it seems that Japan may not have been so aware that Fin whale meat was being foisted on it from Norway and Iceland.
Reuters is reporting that the first whale meat sent to Japan in more than a decade by North Atlantic hunters Iceland and Norway is stuck in cold storage without an import licence, officials said on Friday.
Nearly 70 tonnes of frozen meat from the marine mammals was sent to Japan last month - the first such export since the early 1990s - and whaling lobbies hailed the move as the opening of a new export market.
The Japanese embassy in Oslo said that no import licences for the meat had been granted by Japan as of Thursday this week.
"The government of Japan did not receive a request for any such import licence," diplomat Hitoshi Kawahara told Reuters.
So what was Iceland and Norway up to? Or lets get this right, what were those individuals involved in the commercial hunts up to, because lets not beat about the bush, this is not about Governments anymore, but its about the few individuals who are able to make a lot of money out of whaling that are pulling all the strings now.
Their respective governments appear to be powerless to regulate them, this outmoded industry, or even to be able to talk to each other – note the embarrassment of the Japanese Government in this case.
So where does this end? It would seem that the losers are the people of the three countries who have to suffer the indignity of international condemnation whilst some of their citizens make money out of the suffering of sentient creatures. The other loser is international law and international democratic decision making which is being dragged through the dirt every time these guys decide that nothing matters but the money they stand to make.
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