Japan to leave IWC, resume commercial whaling in July

Japan will withdraw from the International Whaling Commission in 2019 to resume commercial whaling next July after a three-decade hiatus, the government said Wednesday, drawing immediate criticism from anti-whaling nations and groups.Following the withdrawal, Japan will hunt whales in nearby waters and within its exclusive economic zone but not in the Antarctic Ocean, where the country has carried out so-called "scientific whaling" for what it says are research purposes.An annual IWC meeting in September "unveiled the fact that it is not possible in the IWC even to seek the coexistence of s…READ FULL ARTICLE