Japan's PM protested at Graceland

[flvegan]

from IFAW at http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=3

Media story, here:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1110AP_Outside_Graceland.html

"MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Elvis had a special message for President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi: Eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches instead of whale meat.

A colorful scene spread outside Graceland on Friday while Bush and Koizumi were touring the mansion where Elvis Presley lived.

Four Elvis impersonators and someone in a whale costume joined representatives of the International Fund for Animal Welfare to urge the prime minister to end to commercial whaling in Japan."

<snip>

"The group says more than 1,000 whales are killed each year as part of a Japanese government-run scientific program and then sells the whale meat to restaurants and markets."

More from IFAW:
http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw/general/default.aspx?oid=173219

"IFAW U.S. Country Director Greg Wetstone said from outside Graceland: “It may take Elvis to deliver the message, but the reality is that we need to get serious about the growing threat of Japanese whaling. Japan’s whaling fleet will kill more than 1,000 whales this year alone. President Bush needs to tell the Prime Minister that whaling must stop once and for all. On behalf of our millions of global supporters our message to Prime Minister Koizumi is ‘Don’t be Cruel – to whales.’”

Despite a global moratorium on whaling set by the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in 1986, the government of Japan continues to hunt more than 1,000 whales a year as part of what it calls its government-run “scientific” whaling program. While the IWC has condemned Japan’s whaling practices, a loophole in its policy allows for lethal whale research. Japan sells the meat from its whaling operations to commercial restaurants and fish markets."