Room Service, or how Japan’s lobbying for ending commercial whaling ban includes cash, hookers

From the Sunday Times, via TPM:

Japan, in an effort to secure votes to allow commercial whaling, has bribed small countries with aid packages, plus spending money and prostitutes for visiting officials.

Officials with six countries — St Kitts and Nevis, the Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Grenada, Ivory Coast and Guinea — were willing to negotiate with an undercover Times reporter posing as a lobbyist, and some revealed their similar dealings with Japan.

“We support Japan because of what they give us,” one senior fisheries official for the Marshall Islands said. The Times also reported that officials are given cash — up to $1,000 a day — in envelopes, and call girls are made available in their hotels.