Japanese fishermen will set sail on Monday to hunt whales commercially for the first time in more than three decades, after Tokyo's controversial decision to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission.
The hunts are likely to spark criticism from environmentalists and anti-whaling countries, but are cause for celebration among whaling communities in Japan, which says the practice is a long-standing tradition.
The issue has been a diplomatic headache for Japan for years, with Tokyo using a loophole in the IWC rules to carry out hunts in protected Antarctic waters for "scientific" research purposes.
Those hunts were fiercely criticised, and Japan decided last year to withdraw from the IWC after repeatedly failing to convince the body to allow it to resume full-scale commercial whaling.
Whaling ships will set sail on commercial hunts from several parts of Japan on Monday, including the town of Kushiro in northern Japan's Hokkaido.
The group of five small vessels could already be seen at the port there on Sunday. The boats have come from different parts of the country, including Taiji, an area known for dolphin hunts.
from Asia
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