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Australian town in Japanese dolphin back-flip

Two frozen tigers seized in Vietnam: newspapers
Environmental authorities have seized two frozen tigers in Vietnam, where only a few dozen of the animals remain in the wild, state-linked media said Saturday. The tigers, weighing 40 and 90 kilograms (88 and 198 pounds) were discovered Friday in a suburban district of Hanoi, said the Thanh Nien newspaper. At least four people, including the driver of a taxi transporting the animals, have been arrested pending investigations, the paper said. Police and forest rangers in Hanoi were not available for comment Saturday. The Tuoi Tre newspaper said one of the accused told police they bought the tigers south of Hanoi in Thanh Hoa province and were bringing them to the capital for sale at the price of two million dong (111 dollars) per kilogram. There have been at least three similar seizures in Hanoi this year. Tigers are listed as a protected and endangered species under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora that Vietnam is a party to. Asia's rapid urbanisation has threatened the natural habitat of tigers, which are also hunted for fur and body parts used in traditional Chinese medicine.
by Staff Writers
Sydney (AFP) Oct 16, 2009
An Australian town has issued an apology to its Japanese sister city after backing down on a decision to cut ties over its slaughter of thousands of dolphins, officials said Friday.

Broome, a remote tourist town on Australia's rugged northwest coast, in August cancelled its three-decade relationship with Japan's Taiji "while the practice of harvesting dolphins exists".

But at an extraordinary meeting on October 13 it rescinded the decision which it said was made in haste and without wide consultation.

The council said it "unreservedly apologises to the Japanese community in Broome and Taiji, their families and friends for any disrespect caused by council's resolution of 22 August 2009".

"Following a delegation from local cultural groups, councillors decided that a rescission motion was in order," Broome shire president Graeme Campbell said, adding that Taiji officials had been made aware of the change.

Broome suspended its arrangement with Taiji, in Japan's Wakayama prefecture, over its commercial hunting of dolphins after environmentalists objected to the deaths of about 23,000 dolphins there each year.

The issue raised emotions in the coastal town on Australia's west coast, leading to dolphin cut-outs with the wording "Stop the Slaughter" being left at the town's Japanese cemetery.

The council expressed "its sorrow for the public distress caused to the Japanese community by the offensive material" left at the cemetery and said it would install surveillance cameras in the area.

But it noted that it did not condone the harvest of dolphins in Taiji, with which it forged sister-city relations in 1981.

Diplomatic tensions have emerged between Australia and Japan in recent years over Tokyo's continued hunting of whales under the guise of scientific inquiry.

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