Argentines criticize Japanese whaling

Argentines on Tuesday expressed their opposition to and disgust at Japan's decision to restart whale hunting.

Japanese whaling vessels on Tuesday departed from a port in western Japan to join a fleet that will begin hunting whales for "scientific research" in a controversial move that marks the first hunt since the International Court of Justice ruled against the practice a year ago.

After a report of Argentine daily La Nacion on its website, readers expressed their anger over Japan's resumption of whaling.

"First they eat them and then they investigate their remains," said one reader named "Detodounpocomas."

Similar comments were seen on the website of Clarin, Argentina's largest newspaper.

The Argentine branch of Greenpeace, a nongovernmental environmental organization, said in a statement that it had worked hard toward a ban by the International Whaling Commission (IWC), while it maintains "a strong conservationist stance."

"In the last IWC meeting held in Portoroz, Slovenia, in Sept. 2014, we obtained 69 percent of the vote in favor of creating a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic. We were close to getting the 75 percent that we needed for approval. However, Japan once again recruited a score of countries to vote against the proposal," added the statement.

Greenpeace urged Tokyo to cancel the whaling operations. Endi