IWC vote

Well, it looks like the IWC's conservation bloc won and voted to condemn Japan's proposed expansion of its "scientific" whaling program - an expansion which seemed geared solely at increasing the supply of whale-meat to Japanese consumers rather than at gathering any real scientific data. Unfortunately, the Japanese will be going ahead anyway, as the IWC convention gives them an absolute right to kill as many whales as they want to for scientific purposes. With a loophole this large, you really have to wonder whether there's any real point in having a convention at all - but OTOH the other members seem willing to respect the moratorium (though opinions differ on whether it should be temporary or permanant), and that is definitely good for the whales.

This is only a temporary victory, however. The IWC meets every year, and so we get to do this again, and again, and again, until either Japan gets its way, or all the elderly Japanese with a taste for whale meat die of old age. I guess we just have to hope that the latter happens before the former...