... Ghana has "nothing to do with whaling"
... Selling vote for Food Aid?
A Ghanaian delegation, led by Gladys Asmah, Minister of Fisheries, is attending a seminar in Japan for 11 developing states that have recently joined or considered joining the deadlocked International Whaling Commission(IWC).

Japan is lobbying the new members of the IWC to support its much-criticized Antarctic whaling program -- just three days before all members of the commission meet in London to discuss reaching an agreement on whale conservation rules.

In front of the Tokyo conference building, Greenpeace environmental activists held a board designed to look like a Japanese yen note with the face of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

"The government invited delegations from 12 countries, but most of them have nothing to do with whaling," said Junichi Sato of Greenpeace Japan.

The countries taking part in the seminar are Angola, Cambodia, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Ghana, Laos, Malawi, Palau, Tanzania and Vanuatu, the foreign ministry said.

Asked on his reasons for attending, a delegation member from Ghana told AFP: "Japan has its own foreign policy."

Just last week, Ghana and Japan signed and exchanged notes on food aid grant totalling 650 million yen (5.9 million GH cedis) to provide food aid for flood victims of the northern parts of the country. (read)

The number of members of the International Whaling Commission has mushroomed to 78, with many of the new members having little or no history of whaling.

Activist groups including Greenpeace say Japan uses aid money to influence voting in the 78-member International Whaling Commission, a claim the Japanese government denies. Overturning the ban on commercial whaling requires a three-quarters majority if put to a vote at the organization's next annual meeting in Santiago, Chile, in June.