Every year the members of the International Whaling Commission get together for a showdown to decide the fate of the world's largest mammal. And every year the script gets more predictable (see p 4). Pro-whaling nations press for a resumption of commercial whaling. Their opponents cry "shame". Both sides ritually block each other's proposals. The "good guys" harrumph over Japan's vetoing of a whale sanctuary in the South Pacific. Japan, the pantomime villain of the piece, fumes at the West, accusing it of sentimentalism in the face of evidence that whale populations are thriving. Then everyone settles their mini-bar bill and life for the planet's whales goes on as before.
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