Whaling commission meeting faces another row on final day
ANCHORAGE (AFP) - The polarized International Whaling Commission wraps up another stormy annual meeting Thursday as it considers Japan's bid to lift a ban to allow coastal communities to hunt whales.
Japan's proposal, which is expected to fail and deepen the split in the 75-nation group, had already sparked heated debate between pro- and anti-whaling nations on Wednesday.
Japan has been campaigning to lift the whaling moratorium ever since it was imposed in 1986. This year, it is arguing that its traditional coastal communities have the same fundamental right to pursue whaling as natives in the United States and Russia.
Japan submitted the proposal under the same IWC rules allowing aboriginal subsistence whaling quotas, saying whaling culture dates back centuries ago in the richest Asian nation.
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