Whaling fleet attempts to sneak out of port

Reports: Japanese government gives in, slashes whale quotas

Good news for the whales comes in threes. And then you get a dollop of extra. Asahi Shimbun, one of Japan's biggest newspapers, reports there will be a 20 percent reduction in the number of whales targeted in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary hunt this year -- the first reduction since 1987.

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Japan's whaling programme in disarray

As the whaling fleet prepares to depart Japan, evidence is mounting of an industry in crisis, as new revelations of financial and image problems add to the woes of the scandal-plagued industry.

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Challenge to Japan to prosecute anti- whaling activists worldwide

Despite the moratorium on commercial whaling, the Japanese government continues to send a fleet of ships to the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary to kill over a thousand whales. Each season, the fleet departs for the Sanctuary and more whales needlessly die.

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Japanese whaling ship outlawed

Yet another nail has been put in the coffin of Japan's dying whaling industry. We've managed to get the Oriental Bluebird, re-supply and transport ship of Japan’s whaling fleet, de-flagged and fined, following a legal ruling by Panamanian authorities. We are now calling on Japan to scrap the illegal vessel together with the rest of the whaling fleet.

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Activists charged for exposing whale meat scandal

Our Japanese activists Junichi Sato and Toru Suzuki were charged with theft and trespass today by the prosecutor in Aomori after they exposed a major scandal around the embezzlement of whale meat from the Japanese government-sponsored Southern Ocean whaling programme.

Junichi and Toru continue to be held in detention in Aomori, where they have been since their arrest on June 10th, despite widespread international protest.