High-seas whaling standoff draws in Tokyo, Canberra
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A high-seas standoff between Japanese whalers and militant anti-whaling activists in the icy waters of the Antarctic drew the governments of Australia and Japan into the fray Wednesday.
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Japan said Tuesday it was pushing ahead with its controversial plan to hunt humpback whales after key powers   refused a compromise offer and despite warnings by Australia and New Zealand it would be a &quot;provocative act.&quot;
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ANIMAL rights campaigners today claimed Japan has illegally killed hundreds of whales in an Australian sanctuary, and launched legal action aimed at stopping the hunt.
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Wildlilfe authorities in Australia are concerned by the beaching of dozens of whales in two separate incidents in waters off the state of Tasmania.
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When environmental protestors boarded a Japanese whaling ship in the Southern Ocean, images of the action quickly flashed on the world&#39;s TV sets, followed by photos from the Japanese ship after the protestors were taken into custody. Getting these images out is crucial if either side is to win the global PR battle, but doing so can be problematic when you&#39;re at sea, thousands of kilometers from the nearest cell phone network or broadband connection.To solve their problems, both sides take advantage of digital video and photo technology to get the footage, then look to the skies and tap into the global satellite communications network run by London-based Inmarsat. The company specializes in providing voice and data services to maritime vessels and other users at sea, or in remote areas that traditional telecommunications networks don&#39;t reach.On Tuesday, as the protestors approached the Japanese whaling vessel &quot;Yushin Maru 2,&quot; a digital video camera was rolling onboard the small inflatable craft sent from the Sea Shepard Conservation Society&#39;s ship, &quot;Steve Irwin.&quot; The camera caught the moment when two of the conservationists jumped aboard, and within seconds the video was speeding back toward the Steve Irwin on the inflatable.Once back onboard, the video was fed into a Macbook Pro laptop and edited into a 13MB MPEG2 clip that was just 12 seconds long, said Jonny Vasic, a spokesman for the society.&quot;One of our big tools in these whale wars is these video and digital still cameras. They really help us expose the bad guys,&quot; said Vasic.The clip was then sent via satellite to the society&#39;s FTP server and made available to the world&#39;s media.The ship&#39;s satellite communications system is a $35,000 &quot;Sailor Fleet 77&quot; unit that was donated to the society last year by Australia&#39;s Bluetongue Brewery. It supports up to 256Kbps&#160;transmission, although actually getting that speed depends on several factors. In calm seas, a gyro-based mount keeps the antenna pointed at the satellite, but in heavy seas, maintaining a reliable signal can be a problem. Keeping the link gets increasingly difficult as the ship goes further south because the satellite appears very low on the horizon.&quot;It&#39;s about 90 percent reliable,&quot; said Vasic.Crew onboard the &quot;Steve Irwin&quot; are also using the satellite link to attempt to send e-mail to the Japanese ship, in addition to marine-band radio calls, in an attempt to secure the release of their two members, who remain aboard the &quot;Yushin Maru 2.&quot;The Institute of Cetacean Research, the Tokyo-based organization that operates the &quot;Yushin Maru 2,&quot; declined to comment on the technology at its disposal, citing security reasons.&quot;I&#39;m sorry to say, you might be Greenpeace posing as a journalist,&quot; said Gabriel Gomez, a spokesman for the group in Tokyo, when contacted by telephone on Thursday.The systems employed by the Japanese group don&#39;t appear as sophisticated. Only a handful of still images from the ship have been released by the group to the media, and they are a relatively low VGA (640 pixels by 480 pixels) resolution. No video has been made available.The satellite communications technology being employed by the two ships is increasingly being used by media, governmental and relief organizations in remote areas. Earlier this month, Cable News Network (CNN) won a Technology and Engineering Emmy Award for its satellite news gathering system based on Inmarsat&#39;s BGAN broadband system. The BGAN system offers a standard IP (Internet Protocol) connection as fast as 492Kbps and is small enough that it can be built into a backpack.
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Anti-whaling nations said on  Monday they oppose Japan&#39;s proposal to permit whale hunting in  its coastal communities and will push for Japanese concessions  on other issues.
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Australia's government has released graphic photographs and video footage a whales being harpooned and dragged aboard a Japanese ship
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A Japanese whaling ship late Thursday handed over to an Australian customs vessel two anti-whaling activists who barged aboard two days earlier, an official from Japan's Fisheries Agency said.
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A Japanese whaling ship late Thursday handed over to an Australian customs vessel two anti-whaling activists who climbed aboard two days earlier, an official from Japan's Fisheries Agency said.
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Fresh conflict was brewing at world whaling talks, with Japan&#039;s opponents girding for a fight over Tokyo&#039;s drive for a return to commercial whale hunting.
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Australia has sent a customs ship to retrieve two activists who were seized by a Japanese whaling vessel, the country's foreign minister said.
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Australia said Wednesday that Japan has agreed to release two activists detained after going aboard a Japanese whaling ship near Antarctica, as whale hunters and defenders traded accusations of piracy.
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Japan is due to again seek to wrest control of the 70-nation International Whaling Commission, which is currently preventing Tokyo resuming commercial whaling.
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A special meeting of the International  Whaling Commission began on Tuesday, with host Japan and  like-minded countries hoping the gathering will build momentum  to resume commercial hunting of the giant creatures.
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World leaders including the prime ministers of Australia and Japan are heading to Jakarta for an emergency summit on the tsumami catastrophe, an event sure to pose huge security headaches in a country where ...
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Mass strandings of marine mammals have occurred in Australia and New Zealand this week, proving an earlier predication made by Australian scientists, New Zealand Press Association said Wednesday.
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Sydney - An international animal welfare group said on Tuesday it was taking legal action against a Japanese whaling company over the deaths of more than 400 whales in Australian waters near Antarctica.