Japan Press Weekly

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2015 February 18 - 24 [POLITICS]

5,000 citizens shout: Don’t destroy beautiful Henoko sea

Some 5,000 people held a rally in Okinawa on February 22, calling for protecting the beautiful sea from the construction of a new U.S. military base.

Various placards and banners demanding a halt to the ongoing preparation work for the construction stood together in large numbers in front of the gates of U.S. Camp Schwab, adjoining the building site at the Henoko coastal area in Nago City.

Ashitomi Hiroshi, a co-leader of the anti-U.S. heliport council, said in the rally, “We must not turn Okinawa into a battleground again. Let’s work together with people across the country to bring down the Abe government.”

A junior at Nago High School said, “The Japanese administration is making a cowardly attack on us in defiance of the Okinawans’ will which was shown clearly in the elections last year. The U.S. bases in Okinawa, the long-standing main culprit in our sufferings, should be removed without delay.”

Japanese Communist Party Vice Chair Koike Akira delivered a speech along with the mayor of Nago City and the head of the Social Democratic Party. Koike condemned the Okinawa Defense Bureau for destroying many coral reefs by dropping enormous concrete blocks in the waters. He voiced his determination to do his utmost to restore democracy in Okinawa.

Prior to the assembly, the U.S. military unfairly detained two Japanese peace activists near the camp and handed them over to the Nago Police. As local citizens staged protest actions around the police station, the authorities released the two the following night.

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US pays compensation to Philippines for coral reef damage

The Philippines’ foreign ministry announced on February 18 that the U.S. government paid its Philippine counterpart about 87 million pesos (233 million yen) in compensation for a U.S. naval vessel causing damage to coral reefs.

According to the statement, on January 17, 2013, the USS Guardian belonging to the Sasebo Naval Base (Nagasaki Pref., Japan) ran aground on the Tubbataha Reef, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located to the southwest of the Philippine Islands, badly damaging the precious rocks over the length of one kilometer.

Past related article:
> Okinawa Gov. orders halt to preparation work for US base construction [February 17, 2015]