Kushibo singlehandedly thwarts South Korea's whaling plans

Breaching for joy.

Or something like that.

From The Australian (a newspaper, not a person):

South Korea has confirmed it will abandon for now its plans to start a scientific whaling program after strong protests from Australia, the US and other nations.

Foreign Minister Bob Carr said his South Korean counterpart Kim Sung-hwan had told him during talks at the East Asia summit in Cambodia today of the decision.

No reasons were given for the about-face, but it's believed South Korea may have been surprised at the strength of the opposition from its main security guarantor the US and a key trading and defence partner in Australia.

Minister Carr congratulated South Korea for taking the advice of the International Whaling Commission in not proceeding with its plan to begin "scientific" whaling off its own coast.

"Korea has committed itself to green growth and is capable of becoming a global green superpower," he said.

This, of course, is in reference to the story I brought Monster Island readers a week ago, about the terrible, terrible, terrible idea for South Korea to join Japan in pushing "scientific" killing of whales as a cover for supplying whale meat to a market that really should just die, (no small reason being that it would be detrimental to Korea's national image at a time that it's rising and the world is also starting to pay attention to Korea in the run-up to the 2108 Pyongchang Olympics).

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