Blaine Harden
Source: The Washington Post [1]
February 5, 2010

Tokyo, Japan - Japan and the United States keep rubbing each other the wrong way. Last fall, it was a quarrel—still unresolved—over the location of a noisy U.S. military airfield in Okinawa. This year, the stormy U.S. reaction to Toyota's recall troubles has been interpreted by many people here as Japan-bashing.

Now, the trouble is fish.

Bluefin tuna—the crown jewel of sushi, the fish Japanese eat more of than any people on earth—are straining ties between the United States and its closest Asian ally.

The U.S. government said this week that it supports a proposed ban on international trade of Atlantic bluefin tuna because the species is at risk of extinction. The adult population of eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin has plunged 74 percent in the past 50 years, much of it in the past decade. In the western Atlantic, the population has fallen 82 percent.

To read the full text of the article, click here [2].