Okinawa Assembly pins hopes on Obama

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Okinawa Assembly pins hopes on Obama
By David Allen and Chiyomi Sumida, Stars and Stripes
Pacific edition, Friday, December 5, 2008

NAHA, Okinawa — The Okinawa Assembly is counting on President-elect Barack Obama’s promise of change.

The change the assembly wants is the scuttling of plans to move U.S. Marine air operations on Okinawa to a new air facility to be built on Camp Schwab.

After winning control of the prefectural assembly in June, opposition parties to Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party passed a resolution against the project, which is part of broad realignment plans for U.S. troops in Japan.

“We hope that the new U.S. administration will give a full consideration to the voices of Okinawa, who do not want a replacement airport for Marine Corps Air Station on the island,” Zenshin Takamine, speaker of the Okinawa Prefectural Assembly, said Wednesday.

Takamine, a Social Democratic Party member from Ishigaki Island, said Seiji Maehara, the deputy head of Democratic Party Japan and part of the national opposition coalition, visited members of Obama’s foreign affairs staff in June during the presidential campaign.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=59210