U.N. drive for ban on ocean bottom trawling fails

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - U.N. negotiators failed to agree on Thursday on a measure banning a fishing practice known as high-seas bottom trawling that environmentalists say chews up the ocean floor and depletes fish stocks. 

Days of negotiations in a General Assembly committee on the world body's annual resolution on ocean fisheries ended in the early morning hours of Thursday with no deal on a bottom trawling ban in the face of strong opposition from a handful of fishing nations led by Iceland, conservation groups said.