Across the World: Japan

Mayor rejects new base

Susumu Inamine, the new mayor of Nago, Okinawa Prefecture, implored Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama during a meeting yesterday to abandon plans to relocate the United States Marine Corps' Futemma Air Station to his city. Inamine defeated an incumbent in the mayoral election in Nago last month, on a pledge to his electorate that Nago would not accept the Futemma facility from Ginowan. "I told him that I have promised the people not to allow a replacement facility to be built on the sea or on the land," he said, adding he has also promised to seek Futemma's relocation outside Japan's southernmost prefecture.