Japan hands back anti-whaling activists

[Annces]

A Japanese whaling ship has handed over to an Australian customs vessel two anti-whaling activists who climbed aboard two days earlier, an official from Japan's Fisheries Agency says. Australia sent the customs ship, the Oceanic Viking, to the Japanese whaling ship in a bid to end the stand-off involving the activists of the militant Sea Shepherd Conservation Society. "Two Sea Shepherd activists who intruded onto the Yushin Maru No 2 and have been in custody on the ship were handed over to the Oceanic Viking chartered by the Australian government," Hideaki Okada, a whaling official at the Fisheries Agency in Tokyo, told AFP early Friday. The handover took place early Friday AEDT.



Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said earlier today that his government was sending the customs ship to pick up the activists. Australia initially dispatched the Oceanic Viking to monitor Japan's whaling as part of Western governments' campaign to stop the hunt. Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had earlier today urged calm and the safe return of the two men, saying Foreign Minister Stephen Smith was in constant contact with the Japanese government to arrange the handover.

The confrontation had forced the Japanese fleet to suspend whaling and drawn attention to efforts by activists to halt the annual hunt for good. Japan, which says whaling is a part of its culture, uses a loophole in an international moratorium on the practice which allows "lethal research".

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/news/national/japan-hands-back-antiwhaling-activists/2008/01/18/1200590654226.html