The Japanese way

This was reported last weekend, apparently, but I missed it:

Britain’s Sunday Times reported in its online edition that Japan had bribed small nations with cash and prostitutes to gain their support for the mass slaughter of whales.

The International Whaling Commission (IWC) commissioner for Tanzania said “call girls” were made available at the hotels for ministers and senior fisheries civil servants during all-expenses paid trips to Japan, the paper reported.

The Sunday Times’ investigation revealed that officials from six countries were willing to consider selling their votes on the IWC. According to the report, the governments of St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Republic of Guinea and Ivory Coast negotiated selling their votes in return for aid. One official said that call girls were offered when fisheries ministers and civil servants visited Japan for meetings.

A top fisheries official for Guinea said Japan usually gave his minister a “minimum” of $1,000 a day spending money in cash during IWC and other fisheries meetings, the paper reported.