Whaling body to hold talks on deadlock in London

AFP, March, 2008

LONDON (AFP) — The International Whaling Commission will seek to break a bitter deadlock between pro- and anti-whaling groups at a meeting in London this week, a spokesman said Wednesday.

The informal three-day meeting from Thursday comes as Japanese whalers are locked in a struggle with conservation activists who threw acid at crew members of a ship participating in Japan's annual whale hunt in the Southern Ocean.

Japan was enraged by Monday's attack and said it would raise the incident at the meeting.

Foreign Minister Masahiko Komura said it was "not permissible to use violence to try to force through one's opinion."

The London meeting was called by IWC Chairman William Hogarth in a bid to break the impasse between its pro- and anti-whaling blocs.

Hogarth, an American, helped persuade Japan last year to ...