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Prime Minister Helen Clark says Japan's whaling fleet is heading for the Southern Ocean under the "deception" of a scientific expedition.
The fleet left on Sunday, led by the 8000-tonne Nisshin Maru, and conservation activists say it will for the first time target humpback whales.
The fleet intends catching about 850 minke whales and 50 fin whales. Helen Clark said yesterday she hoped there would not be a repeat of the "very unfortunate incidents" which occurred last season when protesters clashed with the fleet.
"It would just be better if the Japanese stayed home and didn't come down under the guise, the deception, the claim that it is scientific whaling," she said.
