Nasty Nips Won't Target Humbacks (For Now)

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I'm far from being xenophobic but I could make an exception for these pricks.

A controversial Japanese mission to hunt humpback whales in the Antarctic has been temporarily abandoned, a top government official says.

Nobutaka Machimura said the humpback hunt would not go ahead - although the fleet will still hunt about 1,000 other whales in the area.

The BBC's Chris Hogg, in Tokyo, says Japan is now unlikely to chase the humpbacks for at least a year.

The move comes after pressure from the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Japan is regularly condemned for its annual whaling missions.more

I will be posting this daily, or otherwise.

The BBC's Jonah Fisher is on a Greenpeace ship tracking the Japanese whaling fleet in the Southern Ocean. You can follow his travels for the next two months on the Ten O'clock News, and in this diary.