Whalers, activists clash again off Antarctica

? Anti-whaling ship the Bob Barker and a Japanese harpoon boat collided in icy Antarctic waters in the second major clash this year in increasingly aggressive confrontations between conservationists and the whaling fleet.

No one was injured in the clash Saturday, which each side blamed on the other.

The U.S.-based activist group Sea Shepherd, which sends vessels to confront the Japanese fleet each year, accused the Japanese ship of deliberately ramming the Bob Barker — named after the U.S. game show host who donated millions of dollars for the anti-whaling group to buy it.

But Japan’s Fisheries Agency said the activist boat caused the collision by suddenly approaching the harpoon vessel No. 3 Yushin Maru to throw bottles containing bad-smelling butyric acid at the Japanese ship.