SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Australia's government on Thursday released graphic pictures of Japanese hunters harpooning whales and dragging the bleeding carcasses onto a ship near Antarctica, calling it evidence of "indiscriminate" slaughter.

Japan denied one of the photographs showed a mother and its calf being killed, and accused Australian officials and media of spreading propaganda that could damage ties between the two nations.

The images were the latest salvo in the new Australian government's stepped-up campaign against Japan's annual whale hunt, which resumed recently after being interrupted by environmental activists who chased the fleet through icy waters at the far south of the world.

One picture shows two whales -- one far smaller than the other -- being dragged by ropes or cables up a ramp in the stern of a ship as blood dribbles down.

Hideki Moronuki, chief of the Japanese Fishing Agency's whaling section, denied the photograph depicted a baby whale.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/02/07/whaling.ap/index.html