• A minke whale is seen, captured for what Japan describes as research purposes, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Kushiro, Hokkaido, in September 2013. The government announced Wednesday that it will withdraw from the International Whaling Commission in 2019 in a bid to resume commercial whaling. | KYODO
    A minke whale is seen, captured for what Japan describes as research purposes, in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Kushiro, Hokkaido, in September 2013. The government announced Wednesday that it will withdraw from the International Whaling Commission in 2019 in a bid to resume commercial whaling. | KYODO
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In a landmark policy shift, Japan formally announced Wednesday that it would withdraw from the International Whaling Commission and resume commercial whaling in its territorial waters next year for the first time in more than 30 years.

Japan’s withdrawal will at the same time put an end to its IWC-sanctioned whaling activity in the Antarctic Ocean, long conducted under the name of “scientific research,” in a practice widely slammed as commercial whaling in disguise.

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