THE US has let Norway off the hook. US President Bill Clinton informed Congress, in the first week of October, that he does not intend to impose trade sanctions against Norway for violating an international ban on commercial whaling, but would instead persuade it to halt killing of minke whales.

Clinton said US objectives would be best achieved by delaying sanctions "until we have exhausted all good- faith efforts to convince Norway to follow agreed convention measures".

Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland responded by saying her country would not set quotas for commercial whaling for 1994 until after the next meeting of the International Whaling Commission in May.