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Despite Ruling, Japan to Resume Whaling in Antarctic Ocean


Joji Morishita, Japan's commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), holds documents as he speaks about Japan's whaling program during a press conference in Tokyo, Nov. 28, 2014.
Joji Morishita, Japan's commissioner to the International Whaling Commission (IWC), holds documents as he speaks about Japan's whaling program during a press conference in Tokyo, Nov. 28, 2014.

Japan has decided to resume whaling in the Antarctic Ocean by the end of March after a hiatus since last year, a move likely to prompt international outrage.

The International Court of Justice ruled in March last year that Japan's decades-old whale hunt in the Antarctic should stop, prompting Tokyo to cancel the bulk of its whaling for the 2014/2015 season.

The Japanese Fisheries Agency on Friday notified the International Whaling Commission that Japan will resume whaling in the 2015/2016 season under a revised plan.

The plan, which calls for cutting annual minke whale catches by two-thirds to 333, is scientifically reasonable, the agency said in a document filed with the IWC.

Japan began what it calls scientific whaling in 1987, a year after an international whaling moratorium took effect.

Japan has long maintained that most whale species are not endangered and that eating whale is part of its food culture.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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