Japan pauses whale hunt during standoff
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Protesters scored a victory in a high-seas campaign to disrupt Japan's whale hunt in the Antarctic, forcing the fleet to a standstill Wednesday while officials scrambled to unload two activists who used a rubber boat to get on board a harpoon vessel.
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Nearly a year after ending its ban on  commercial whaling, Iceland will not issue new whale-hunting  quotas until market demand increases and it gets an export  license from Japan.
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Japan has resumed its annual whale hunt in waters near Antarctica now that anti-whaling activists have stopped pursuing the Japanese fleet, a news report said Tuesday.
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Japan is set to abandon whale hunting in the Antarctic for this season after its main whaling ship was crippled by a fire two weeks ago, public broadcaster NHK said on Wednesday.
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Japan is confident it can secure the  votes needed to resume commercial trade in whale products and  that this would be a step toward lifting a ban on hunting the  marine giants, a Japanese official said Wednesday.
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Japan's Antarctic fleet resumes whaling after anti-hunt activists are forced away by running out of fuel.
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Japan failed in its bid Thursday to lift a moratorium on commercial whaling after stormy annual talks of the 75-nation International Whaling Commission (IWC) and warned it might pull out of the organization.
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Japanese leaders struggled on Thursday to make contact with Islamic militants in Iraq who took a Japanese traveler hostage as the 48-hour deadline approached for the young man's threatened beheading. Tokyo stood firm in its refusal to meet the kidnappers' demand to withdraw troops from Iraq.
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A Japanese whaling ship issued a distress signal from Antarctic waters on Monday, after it collided with a protest boat trying to save whales from slaughter, according to activists.
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Japan said Friday it would be difficult to resolve a growing row with Australia over whaling as the issue was a cultural clash between the two countries.
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The crew of a Japanese whaling ship stranded in Antarctic waters was trying to repair its engines Sunday and prevent an abrupt end to Japan's whaling season, an official said.
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The polarized International Whaling Commission wraps up another stormy annual meeting Thursday as it considers Japan&#39;s bid to lift a ban to allow coastal communities to hunt whales.
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A meeting called by Japan to plan the end of the whaling moratorium is boycotted by most anti-whaling nations.
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One crewman has been missing after fire erupted on a Japanese whaling ship in icy Antarctic waters, following weeks of running battles between the hunters and militant environmentalists.
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Japan is due to again seek to wrest control of the 70-nation International Whaling Commission, which is currently preventing Tokyo resuming commercial whaling.
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New Zealand authorities are waiting for crew aboard a crippled Japanese whaling ship to decide whether they need to be towed out of the area, or will remain and continue whaling.
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A key environmental panel said on Wednesday backers of a huge energy project off Russia's Sakhalin island should consider suspending operations while studies continue on survival of a rare whale species.