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Japan resumes commercial whaling after 30 years following the country's withdrawal from the International Whaling Commission. At least 227 whales are expected to be killed through to December.
2019-07-1

United States Vice President Mike Pence visits Alaska, where he meets with Governor Bill Walker and discusses stationing F-35 squadrons in the state. Pence is beginning a 10-day trip to South Korea, Australia, Indonesia and Japan.
2017-04-15

A Japanese fleet returns home after hunting 333 whales in the Antarctic. The Japanese government states that the purpose was for research.
2017-03-31

In Tokyo, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull says his country is “very disappointed” with Japan's decision to resume whaling, but this dispute should not be allowed to hurt the two countries' special strategic ties. Malcolm Turnbull, who replaced Tony Abbott in September, is on his first visit to Japan which will include talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe.
2015-12-18

Australia is threatening to take legal action against Japan over its resumption of its controversial whale hunt in the Antarctic Ocean. A whaling fleet set sail last week, ignoring international condemnation, and last year's ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) prohibiting these hunts.
2015-12-7

Japan advises the International Whaling Commission that it plans to resume hunting minke whales for scientific research in the Antarctic Ocean by the end of March 2016. The United Nations' International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in March 2014 that Japan's decades-old whale hunt in the Antarctic should stop, prompting Tokyo to cancel the bulk of its whaling for the 2014-2015 season. ICJ decisions were binding and cannot be appealed.
2015-11-28

The United Nations International Court of Justice rules that Japan's Antarctic whaling program is not scientific but commercial and forbids grants of further permits.
2014-03-31

Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Hong Kong ban poultry imports from the Australian state of Victoria while Japan bans imports from the whole of Australia following an outbreak of a low pathogenic form of the avian influenza (separate from the potentially deadly H5N1 strain).
2012-02-1

The governments of the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the Netherlands protest the start of Japan's whaling season off the coast of Antarctica.
2011-12-14

Japan's whaling fleet is leaving the Antarctic under pressure from conservationists and diplomats.
2011-02-16