Whale Meat Shop at Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo

Whale Meat Shop at Tsukiji Fish Market, Tokyo, photographed in December 2008. The meat on display includes endangered fin whale meat, shipped from Iceland in summer 2008, but only controversially imported nearly half a year later, after being held up at customs.

Iceland's whaling programme made news recently as the outgoing government increased the island nation's commercial quota sixfold on the day the fisheries minister left office.

Japan targets almost 1000 whales in its own "scientific" hunt in the Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary every year, which environmentalists claim is a mere ploy to circumvent the moratorium on commercial whaling, put in place two decades ago by the International Whaling Commission.

Tsukiji fish market is the biggest wholesale fish and seafood market in the world.