RR Phantom
Location : Wasted Space Job/hobbies : Cayman Islands Actuary
| Subject: Can they take a gentle hint? Thousands rally against US military base on Japan's Okinawa Tue May 19, 2015 3:45 am | |
| Thousands of people rallied in Okinawa in southern Japan on Sunday in protest against a controversial US airbase on the island, as a two-decade-old bitter row over the relocation of the site drags on.
Okinawa is home to more than half of the 47,000 US service personnel stationed in Japan as part of a defence alliance, a proportion many islanders say is too high.
Futenma airbase has become emblematic of that ill-will since Washington announced plans to move it in 1996, hoping to ease tensions with the host community after the gang-rape of a schoolgirl by servicemen.
But locals have blocked the move to relocate the base, insisting the facility should go off-island instead, queering relations between Tokyo and Okinawa -- a once independent kingdom that was annexed by Japan in the 19th century.
https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/28033886/thousands-rally-against-us-military-base-on-japans-okinawa/ |
|