Latest Whaling in Japan Stories

ULSAN, South Korea -- Pro-whaling nations suffered an early setback on Monday by losing a key vote at an international whaling meeting where they are aiming to take a majority and roll back conservationist measures. Members of the International Whaling Commission voted 30 to 27 to defeat a proposal offered by Japan to change voting procedures to a secret ballot. Conservationists said it was too early to claim victory because three states -- Gambia, Togo and Nauru -- that recently joined the...

SYDNEY, Australia -- Australian officials are trying to prevent a resumption of commercial whaling and halt Japan's scientific research whaling, a Cabinet minister said Tuesday. Even Prime Minister John Howard has joined the push, sending a letter to his Japanese counterpart, Junichiro Koizumi, saying Australia believes there is no basis for killing whales. "What the prime minister has demonstrated is that we are prepared to raise this at levels that it's never been raised before,"...

TOKYO, (AFP) -- Served as burgers and marinated with sweet and sour sauce, whale meat has returned to Japanese school lunches 20 years after it went off the menu amid global anti-whaling campaigns, officials said. Nearly 85 percent of public elementary and junior high schools in Wakayama, Japan's western whaling heartland, have begun whale meat lunches with school officials receiving positive responses from children."Whale meat is served as burgers or meat balls or marinated with sweet...

TOKYO (AP) -- Japan plans to extend its research whaling program in the Antarctic Ocean, an official said Friday, after the country wraps up 18 years of expeditions that anti-whaling groups and nations criticize as commercial whaling in disguise. A hunt authorized by the International Whaling Commission ended Thursday, after five ships returned home from the Antarctic with their haul of 440 minke whales, Japan's Fisheries Agency said. "We already have submitted a new research plan for...