APNewsBreak: US mulls sanctions against Iceland
By DAVID Mac DOUGALL, Associated Press – 4 hours ago
HELSINKI (AP) — The United States is set to announce possible trade and diplomatic sanctions against Iceland for ramping up its whale hunts despite an international moratorium on commercial whaling.
The Obama administration on Wednesday will cite Iceland under a domestic law that allows the president to
act Read More
A new movement of consciousness amongst Icelanders is gaining momentum. From meetings with the prominent and politically connected, to students from the universities, a small movement of pro whale watching and anti whaling advocates has been formed. This movement will focus on a powerful pro whale watching campaign which challenges the whaling and fishing industry’s false statements that promote the killing of whales. Just as the financial sectors of Iceland and U.S. claimed they should be trusted with financial investments prior to and throughout this worldwide economic collapse, the whaling and fisheries industry of Iceland claim they should be trusted with the international whale population. The scientific advisors to the Fisheries and Whaling industries of Iceland are submissive to the Chairman and other Executives of the Fisheries, which also happens to be the owners of the largest whaling company in Iceland. The scientists for the Marine Research Institute of Iceland (MRI) are incentivized by the Ministry of Fisheries, The Federation of Icelandic Fishing Vessel Owners (LIU), and The Confederation of Icelandic Employers (SA) to produce scientific study results that support whaling. Just like the incentives that caused the global economic crisis, these incentives for the MRI scientist will contribute to the collapse of worldwide whale species.
This new group of pro whale watching and anti whaling advocates are fully aware that the whaling industry is controlled by a few wealthy individuals and can be toppled with a strategic attack. The movement is gaining momentum alongside the whale watching industry. Whaling will fall in Iceland and it’s only a matter of months before the owners of the whaling companies and their supporters in the Parliament and Fisheries will succumb to the same slow, painful end that they have given time and again to the whales of our world.
If you would like to join the movement, please email us at tim@keepingwhalesalive.org
Nineteen conservation and animal welfare groups, representing tens of millions of U.S. citizens, today called on the US Secretaries of Commerce and Interior to impose trade sanctions against Iceland for its escalating defiance of international conservation agreements on commercial whaling.
A petition filed by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) on behalf of the ‘Whales Need US’ coalition and Species Survival Network, urges Secretaries Locke and Salazar to invoke U.S. conservation legislation known as the Pelly Amendment against Iceland, a move that could deal a death blow to Iceland’s out of control whaling industry.
The Pelly Amendment authorizes Read More
Icelandic whaling company Hvalur has exported 500-600 tons of fin whale meat to Japan this year, according to the Japanese news agency Kyodo. The reports from Kyodo or estimations and claimed to be inaccurate by Iceland’s Statistics Agency.
According to information from the Japanese Ministry of Finance, Read More
25.11.2010 | 11:47
US Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke has sent a letter to Icelandic Minister of Fisheries Jón Bjarnason where he criticizes Iceland’s whaling, reasoning that there is no market for whale products and that whaling is therefore unnecessary.
In the letter, Locke said he is hoping for further discussions on whaling with Iceland. “We are prepared to Read More
Icelanders may appear sceptical about joining the EU, but the country needs the European Union more than the other way around, Estonian MEP Indrek Tarand (Greens/European Free Alliance), a member of the EU-Iceland joint parliamentary committee, told EurActiv in an exclusive interview. Read More
WTF?! 
Recently, the company Hrefnuveiðimenn ehf., a group of Icelandic whalers that have been hunting Minke whales over the last 45 years, decided to pursue maritime licensing to turn their whale killing ships into a whale watching ships. Their desperate marketing concept is to chase down whales in the region, fire their harpoon guns, display the internal organs of whales, then feed their customers whale meat. Read More
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Yesterday it was announced in the media that whalers who kill minke whales outside the south west coast of Iceland had found a new way of doing business. It does not surprise me that they are trying new things because minke whaling is a bloody bad business to tell you the truth. Now they say they are offering new kind of whale watching.
Unlike the four whale watching operators in Reykjavík the minke whalers will not show whales alive in their natural habitat. No, they will show whales organs in formalin on the middle deck of their whaling vessel and describe for visitors what sort of a work they do. Read More
According to Statistics Iceland, no Fin Whales meat was exported during June, 2010. Hence, Mr. Loftsson’s whaling company Hvalur, still has some 1130 tons of fin whale meat in their freezers in Iceland. He has added to the inventory by killing some 70 more fin whales, which is about 850 tons, making the total close to 2000 tons. Compare that with the 2046 tons harvested by the Japanese in Antarctic waters last season and we quickly realize that Mr. Loftsson has an enormously heavy marketing challenge in Japan.
Visit this link for more information on this subject: http://www.icelandreview.com/icelandreview/search/news/Default.asp?ew_0_a_id=364703