To Protect Whales, U.S. Diplomacy Needs Teeth (Op-Ed)
Kitty Block is Vice President of Humane Society International. She contributed this article to Live Science's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
When it comes to whaling, the United States has to walk a difficult path, a point reinforced at the International Whaling Commission (IWC)'s biennial meeting held in Slovenia last month. The overwhelming majority of Americans would expect their representatives to be firm in their opposition to any resumption of commercial whaling, yet the U.S. delegation also has the responsibility of representing the interests of its Inuit whalers, whose annual aboriginal subsistence quota for approximately 75 bowhead whales in Alaskan waters has to be approved at the IWC every few years. In addition, Japan —the power-house behind the push for a resumption of commercial whaling — is a key international ally to the United States. To some extent, that is also true of the other whaling nations, Norway, Denmark and Iceland.
Despite those issues, the United States showed great resolve in joining 34 other nations to sign a démarche (a high-level diplomatic protest) against Iceland's expanding commercial whaling, delivered to Reykjavik during the IWC meeting. The démarche targeted Iceland's hunting and trading in products of the edangered fin whale.
Maryland hospital to care for U.S. doctor exposed to Ebola in West Africa Reuters
Ebola in Texas: Most of the Patient's Contacts Have Been Interviewed LiveScience.com
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has seen six cases of the Ebola virus in recent weeks affecting five Americans and a Liberian. Two of the cases surfaced this week, raising concerns about wider spread of the disease, which has killed at least 3,439 people in the current outbreak in West Africa.