Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
HERO of the week award goes to Hayden Panettiere. The cheerleading actress has been issued with an arrest warrant from the Japanese government after she broke Japanese law to protest against the slaughter of a group of dolphins.
The controversial babe swam out into the ocean with a group of friends in an attempt to stop the fishermen from carrying out their intent, putting their own lives at risk from the angry fishermen prodding spears at them to get them out of the way.
A video of the protest shows Hayden and her friends being lunged at by the fishermen and eventually being forced to move out of the way to avoid serious injury. The video then cuts to a hysterically crying Hayden and blood infested waters before the police show up, giving the protesters a hard time.
While encouraging someone to break the law is not something I would usually recommend, I can't help feeling that in this case it was a job well done.
Some 14,000 dolphins are killed for food every year in Japan and while it's perfectly legal and the fishermen are breaking no laws, it isn't something that has garnered the attention of the world's press ... until now.
With a star as up and coming as Hayden right in the thick of the action, it was inevitable that that the newspapers were going to get their hands on the story. But the more column inches and television coverage dolphin protection gets, the more likely it is that the laws will eventually have to bow to public pressure.
Action of this kind is rare to see in one so young, let alone a teenage actress just starting to make a real name for herself in LaLa Land. Where most would be concentrating on the next big movie, Hayden is taking time out to stand up in what she believes - even if it risks arrest and interfering with her career.
