Japan has agreed to release a Briton and an Australian who were detained after storming aboard a Japanese whaling ship near Antarctica, Australian officials said today.

TWO anti-whaling protestors, were held on a Japanese whaling ship yesterday after boarding it in a protest.

A Japanese whaling ship has begun moving away from the Antarctic coast under its own power, an official said today – 10 days after fire crippled the vessel and left it stricken near the world’s biggest Adelie penguin rookery.

Searchers in freezing Antarctic waters found two anti-whaling activists today after their inflatable dinghy became lost in heavy fog, the international conservation group Sea Shepherd said.