CHOKE ON YOUR SHARK-FIN SOUP!

Every year millions of sharks die a slow death because of what is known as finning: the inhumane practice of slicing off the fins and throwing the living body back into the sea.

Finned sharks either starve to death, or are eaten alive by other predators, but since they need constant movement to enable their gills to extract oxygen, a majority simply drown.

Shark fins are being "harvested" in ever greater numbers to feed the Asian demand for shark fin soup. The Chinese are the biggest customers for this so-called delicacy and like the Japanese intransigence over whaling, they show scant concern for decimating the world shark population.

Not only is finning barbaric, but the indiscriminate slaughter of sharks is unsustainable. Since the 1970s the population of several shark species has dropped by 95%.

Due to the clandestine nature of finning, it is difficult to record the numbers of sharks, and the species caught. Estimates are based on declared imports to shark fin markets notably in China, but also Singapore, Korea and Malaysia - all guilty of importing shark fin for restaurant tables.

Several organisations campaign to stop finning. A website seeking a worldwide ban on the practice, is STOPSHARKFINNING, which aims to see that all sharks caught are brought ashore intact.

The issue with sharks being finned at sea is that it allows crews to kill large numbers because they only have to store the fins on board (drying them on deck or freezing them). If forced to land the sharks, they cannot kill so many in one voyage. And the meat can be sold.

www.stopsharkfinning.net

Images: www.copix.co.uk

For graphic images of shark finning check out:

http://seapics.com/feature-subject/conservation-issues/shark-finning-shark-fishing-pictures-001.html

CHINA BULLIES AUSSIE FILM FESTIVAL

If you don`t like the content of a film festival, you attack its website. At least that`s what the Chinese have done to the Melbourne Film Festival, over its decision to screen a 55 minute documentary on Rebiya Kadeer, the leading campaigner for Uighur rights.

Following the July clashes between ethnic Uighurs and Han Chinese (many forcibly settled in the Xinjiang in north-west China) Beijing has `pointed the bone`. And not only was the festival website hacked into, Chinese film-makers withdrew five of their films in a further exercise designed to spoil the event.

As head of the World Uighur Congress, Ms Kadeer is the champion of the Uighurs, a Muslim peoples of some 11 millions, scattered throughout central Asia, who make up 50% population in Xinjiang.

The Chinese label the Uighur nationalists as "terrorists" and following 9/11, they have manipulated global support for a self-declared "war on terror". Human rights groups have responded by accusing Beijing of using this as a pretext to repress Uighur culture and religion.

"Last time during the Tibet riots, [the Chinese government] blamed the Dalai Lama, and now with the Xinjiang riot, they are blaming me," Ms Kadeer told the BBC of the July riots.

As Ms.Kadeer continues her global travels, so the Chinese continue their protests, most recently to Japan.

Meanwhile the fate of thousands of Uighurs imprisoned after the riots remains unknown.

c.Christine Osborne

Image: Uighur barber`s in Xinjiang

Source: L.Mitchell www.copix.co.uk

BOYCOTT RESTAURANTS

SERVING ENDANGERED SPECIES OF FISH

The stocks of several species of fish are seriously endangered due to overfishing caused by demand from unscrupulous restaurants.

While these are located mainly in Asia, notably in China and Japan, several well known London restaurants are serving both bluefin tuna and shark fin soup.

Sharks and bluefin tuna are on the danger list, but while the fishing of both species is condemned by conservationists, neither NOBU`S celebrity haunt in Mayfair, nor the Dorchester Hotel`s CHINA TANG - run by Hong Kong tycoon Sir David Tang - will take them off their menus.

I call for a BOYCOTT of both these restaurants and any others you may come across when dining out in London. Or elsewhere.

About twenty species of shark are said to be under threat. If you see fishermen performing the cruel practice of `finning and tailing` and often throwing the sharks back into the sea to bleed to death, advise the Humane Society International and/or Endangered Species International.

Countries where this practise is rife include: Somalia, Kenya, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, Phillipines, the Eastern Arab Gulf states and Yemen.

c.Christine Osborne

Image: Finning a shark, Monbasa, Kenya

Source: Grazyna Bonati www.copix.co.uk