AT SEA: DECEMBER 12 OFF PERUVIAN COAST - GREENPEACE. (MUTE)
1. GV PAN Greenpeace launches alongside Rainbow Warrior (Greenpeace ship) 0.11
2. GV Greenpeace launch heading towards whaler (2 shots) 0.21
3. GVs/SVs Greenpeace launch tailing Victoria Seven, whaler, with whales in tow (4 shots) 0.48
4. GV Greenpeace members boarding Victoria Seven 0.50
5. SVs Greenpeace members shackling themselves to a harpoon (2 shots) 1.04
6. GV PAN Crew watch as Greenpeace protesters hoist "Save the Whale" banner (in Spanish) up the mast 1.10
7. GVs Greenpeace members in launch trying to set whale free (3 shots) 1.23
8. GV Whale being towed up ship's ramp to processing plant on board Victoria Seven 1.32
PARIS: DECEMBER 15: CAUSSIDERY: (SOUND)
9. GV Police standing outside Swedish embassy 1.35
10. SV PAN/SVs PAN Ecologist-protesters who have handcuffed themselves to embassy gates with placards saying in French "La Hague. No more rubbish, dustbins are full." (3 shots) 1.47
11. SV Police with metal-cutting tools standing by 1.51
InitialsRdeL/BB

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Background: OFF PERUVIAN COAST/PARIS, FRANCE

A ship belonging to the Greenpeace ecology organisation was detained by the Peruvian authorities after its crew boarded a whaling ship in Peru's territorial waters on December 12. Members of the group chained themselves to the harpoon gun of the Japanese-owned Victoria Seven. Others hoisted up a "Save the Whale" banner, and cut loose several whales the Latin-American crew were preparing to process. Greenpeace spokesmen said members of the organisation had sailed to Peru on board their vessel Rainbow Warrior to try and convince the government to agree to a proposed international whaling ban due to take effect in 1985. However, the Peruvian government had refused to reconsider its policy on the commercial killing of whales, which ecologists say is a threat to the survival of the species. On December 15, ten Greenpeace campaigners and members of the anti-nuclear groups from the French Normandy port of Cherbourg handcuffed themselves to the railings of the Swedish embassy in Paris to protest at Franco-Swedish atomic waste contracts. Concern over retreatment of Swedish atomic waste at La Hague, near Cherbourg, recently increased after an accident had damaged the French-Swedish ship used to transport the waste. The protesters withdrew from the embassy after Swedish Energy Minister Brigitte Dalh agreed to meet them later in the month.

Source: GREENPEACE AND REUTERS - JEAN PAUL CAUSSIDERY