Photograph of Japanese whale hunt found at Sky News
Will Japan’s internal politics go further than just encouraging its government to continue its Antarctic lethal research/commercial whaling venture?
Aljazeera 16 April 2014:
A Japanese parliamentary committee has unanimously passed a resolution urging the government to investigate all options to continue whaling, including "walking out of the (international whaling) convention".
The 40-strong fisheries committee, made up of a cross-section of members of the lower house, demanded on Wednesday the government redesign its "research" whaling programme to circumvent an international court ruling that described the programme as a commercial hunt dressed up as science.
It said the ruling earlier this month by the International Court of Justice that banned Japan's research whaling programme in the Southern Ocean was "truly regrettable" but "does not necessarily prevent Japan's whaling, which is a unique tradition and culture".
The panel demanded the government find a way to continue the research operation "so as to play a responsible role as the only country in the world with a scientific approach", according to AFP news agency.
The parliamentarians also demanded the government swiftly draw up a plan to replace the banned Antarctic whaling operation and fully prepare for a new programme while circulating "whale meat - a by-product of research whaling - appropriately as before".
Although it is a signatory to the International Whaling Convention (IWC), which bans the commercial hunting of the mammals, Japan has used a loophole that allows for "lethal research".
It said it was perfectly proper for people to consume the meat that was the inevitable by-product of the killing….
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