Activists are "expecting calls for a boycott" of Japan’s two biggest int'l sporting events -- the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games -- because of the country’s "controversial decision to resume commercial whaling," according to Nazvi Careem of the SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST. Notable figures such as British endurance swimmer and ocean conservationist Lewis Pugh and Dennis Hone -- the man who "helped deliver" the 2012 London Olympic Games -- said that Japan’s decision to leave the Int'l Whaling Commission "may result in protests around the world." Others on social media "vowed to boycott both events and urged fans to follow suit." Pugh: "I suspect that with the Ruby World Cup being hosted in Japan next year, and the Olympic Games in 2020, they will now face even greater international and domestic pressure to stop whaling." Japan said that it would defy the '86 global ban on commercial whaling and its fleet would start operations in July '19, two months before the Rugby World Cup kicks off. Japanese government spokesperson Yoshihide Suga said that hunts "would be confined to Japanese territorial waters." Japan was to inform the IWC by Monday (SCMP, 12/28).
