On Tuesday, IWC governments voted to allow the Bequians of St Vincent and the Grenadines to continue hunting whales under "aboriginal subsistence" rules, designed for peoples with an established tradition.

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And the countries pursuing subsistence quotas for their indigenous groups - Russia, Denmark (on behalf of Greenland), St Vincent and the Grenadines, and above all the US - will be stalked by the spectre of 2002, when a political stand-off put the future of subsistence whaling at risk.

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