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Report: Japan bribed countries ‘with cash, prostitutes’ to keep whaling
Japanese government agencies trying to loosen a 24-year-old moratorium on commercial whaling used cash and the offer of prostitutes to convince small countries to vote in favor of lifting the ban, a news report claims. The UK's Sunday Times reports it has film of officials from various governments admitting that Japan offered financial aid in exchange for a pro-whaling vote on the International Whaling Commission. The IWC meets this month in Morocco to decide the fate of the moratorium on whaling, which Japan has largely skirted by classifying its annual whale hunt as "scientific research."