As the Pentagon hunts for sites to deploy missiles, Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki warned the US to steer clear of the southern Japanese prefecture.
Tamaki said in an interview on Friday that any US attempt to base intermediate-range ballistic missiles in Okinawa would be firmly opposed by the local people.
Tamaki, who was elected last year on a campaign to get the US Marines’ Futenma air base out of the prefecture, said that the region already shoulders an unfair burden by hosting about half of the 50,000 US military personnel in Japan.
“Intermediate-range ballistic missiles can be used to attack other countries, so deploying them would conflict with the constitution and lead to a further build-up of the US bases,” Tamaki told reporters. “To have new military facilities would be absolutely unacceptable.”
Tamaki’s comments underscore the challenges facing the US as it seeks to deploy land-based cruise missiles and intermediate-range ballistic missiles after withdrawing from a treaty with Russia that banned them.
The administration of US President Donald Trump scrapped the agreement in part because China, which was not bound by the treaty, has a wide variety of similar missiles that can target the US bases and allies in the region.
Okinawa would be an ideal place for such weapons, as its bases could put all of China in range.
SUPPORT: Elon Musk’s backing for the far-right AfD is also an implicit rebuke of center-right Christian Democratic Union leader Friedrich Merz, who is leading polls German Chancellor Olaf Scholz took a swipe at Elon Musk over his political judgement, escalating a spat between the German government and the world’s richest person. Scholz, speaking to reporters in Berlin on Friday, was asked about a post Musk made on his X platform earlier the same day asserting that only the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party “can save Germany.” “We have freedom of speech, and that also applies to multi-billionaires,” Scholz said alongside Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal. “But freedom of speech also means that you can say things that are not right and do not contain
Two US Navy pilots were shot down yesterday over the Red Sea in an apparent “friendly fire” incident, the US military said, marking the most serious incident to threaten troops in over a year of US targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Both pilots were recovered alive after ejecting from their stricken aircraft, with one sustaining minor injuries. However, the shootdown underlines just how dangerous the Red Sea corridor has become over the ongoing attacks on shipping by the Iranian-backed Houthis despite US and European military coalitions patrolling the area. The US military had conducted airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Houthi rebels at the
Pulled from the mud as an infant after the devastating Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and reunited with his parents following an emotional court battle, the boy once known as “Baby 81” is now a 20-year-old dreaming of higher education. Jayarasa Abilash’s story symbolized that of the families torn apart by one of the worst natural calamities in modern history, but it also offered hope. More than 35,000 people in Sri Lanka were killed, with others missing. The two-month-old was washed away by the tsunami in eastern Sri Lanka and found some distance from home by rescuers. At the hospital, he was
MILITANTS TARGETED: The US said its forces had killed an IS leader in Deir Ezzor, as it increased its activities in the region following al-Assad’s overthrow Washington is scrapping a long-standing reward for the arrest of Syria’s new leader, a senior US diplomat said on Friday following “positive messages” from a first meeting that included a promise to fight terrorism. Barbara Leaf, Washington’s top diplomat for the Middle East, made the comments after her meeting with Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus — the first formal mission to Syria’s capital by US diplomats since the early days of Syria’s civil war. The lightning offensive that toppled former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Dec. 8 was led by the Muslim Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s
RSS