By ANNE BESTON
A closed-door meeting on whaling begins in Auckland today and delegates are hoping they can make progress on the controversial issue away from the international spotlight.
The International Whaling Commission regularly appoints small groups of countries to try to thrash out issues before the main IWC meeting.
Countries taking part
in the Auckland meeting include pro-whalers Japan and Norway and anti-whaling nations such as New Zealand and the United States.
Also here are delegates from Antigua and Barbuda, the small Caribbean nation at the centre of a vote-buying scandal which dominated last year's acrimonious IWC meeting in London.
Japan was accused of giving aid to small, poor nations in return for votes at the IWC.
This year's full IWC meeting will be held in May in Shimonoseki, Japan, and anti-whaling nations and conservationists are worried pro-whalers will make an all-out effort to get IWC agreement for a return to commercial whaling.
"There is a real threat Japan will get a majority of the votes at that meeting," said Greenpeace spokeswoman Sarah Duffy.
Greenpeace would be protesting outside the Auckland meeting, she said.
Japan kills about 400 minke whales in the Southern Ocean each year under its scientific research programme.
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