term diet of a whale could be seen from a genetic sample of its skin, for instance. "Japan's whaling programme is about business and politics, but not sound science," Lieberman said. Japan has threatened to quit the IWC if the organisation fails at its next meeting in South Korea on June 20 to approve a set of rules that would allow limited commercial whaling. Whaling nations in turn accuse the IWC of extending the moratorium on commercial hunts year after year despite scientific evidence that some whale stocks have recovered. Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993, saying that minke whales were again plentiful in the north Atlantic, and has set a 2005 quota of 796 whales. Like Japan, Iceland carries out scientific whaling. The fleet killed 25 minke whales last year. --SP 0045 Local Time 2145 GMT
