‘Anti-US base’ Tamaki wins vote

TOKYO, Sept 30, (AFP): A candidate pledging to resist construction of a new US military base on the Japanese island of Okinawa has won the election for governor of the strategic island, local media said Sunday.

Both national broadcaster NHK and the Asahi Shimbun said Denny Tamaki had won Sunday’s vote, in a blow to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe whose ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) had backed a rival candidate.

Tamaki has vowed to continue fighting against a joint US-Japanese project to move the US Marines’ Futenma Air Station from an urban area in Okinawa to a sparsely populated region of the island.

Abe’s party backed Atsushi Sakima, who focused on economic messages throughout the campaign and stayed tight-lipped on his views about the base.

The LDP has long pressed Okinawa to accept the new air base. But opponents say the island already has more than its fair share of US military facilities and the base should be relocated outside Okinawa altogether.

The election was sparked by last month’s death due to cancer of governor Takeshi Onaga, who also opposed the new base.

Tamaki, son of a US Marine who previously served as a national opposition lawmaker, cast himself as Onaga’s rightful successor.

Okinawa accounts for less than one percent of Japan’s total land area, but hosts about 28,000 US troops — more than half of the approximately 47,000 American military personnel stationed in Japan.

Noise, accidents and crimes by US military and service members have long frustrated local residents, while municipalities in the rest of the nation have refused to share Okinawa’s burden. Onaga had tried to block efforts to reclaim land for the new offshore facility, and he and the national government filed rival lawsuits to try to settle the issue.

Also: KAGOSHIMA: A powerful typhoon pounded Japan’s mainland Sunday after injuring dozens on outlying islands, bringing transport grinding to a halt and triggering warnings of fierce winds, torrential rain, landslides and floods.

of public acrimony, the leaders regularly traded threats and insults as North Korea pushed to develop a nuclear missile capable of hitting the United States.

“I was really being tough — and so was he. And we would go back and forth,” Trump told a rally in West Virginia.

“And then we fell in love, okay? No, really — he wrote me beautiful letters,

Catalan police officers cordon off the street to stop pro independence demonstrators, on their way to meet demonstrations by members and supporters of National Police and Guardia Civil in Barcelona on Sept 29. (AP)

Typhoon Trami has already snarled travel in the world’s third-biggest economy, with bullet train services suspended, more than 1,000 flights cancelled and Tokyo’s evening train services scrapped.

The storm’s huge eye was forecast to move near the city of Osaka before churning across the Japanese archipelago, likely hitting areas still recovering from extreme weather that has battered Japan in recent months.

In total, 65 people have sustained minor injuries — mainly cuts from shattered glass — and one woman was reported missing in the Miyazaki region, which was drenched by record rainfall and suffered localised flooding.

According to local media, the woman in her 60s was swept away by gusts in a gutter while working with her husband in their ricefield.

Nationwide, authorities have issued non-compulsory evacuation advisories to 1.5 million residents, according to public broadcaster NHK, and officials urged people across the country to stay indoors.

Nearly 500,000 households in the western region of Kyushu and Okinawa have lost power, local utilities said.

Violent gusts and heavy rain made it impossible to venture outside, said Yuji Ueno, an official in the town of Shirahama in Wakayama prefecture, which was forecast to be right in Trami’s path.

“From around 2pm, we saw incredible winds and rain. I stepped outside the city hall in the afternoon, and the rain was swirling in very strong wind. Enormous wind.”

“It was difficult to stay standing. It was very scary,” Ueno told AFP.

As the typhoon barrelled east, rail authorities took the highly unusual step of cancelling evening train services in Tokyo, one of the world’s busiest networks, urging passengers to shelter indoors when the storm hits.

The typhoon is not expected to hit the capital head-on but strong winds and heavy rain are still feared from later Sunday. Some businesses were already putting up shutters and hunkering down.

Trami is the latest in a string of extreme natural events in Japan, which has suffered typhoons, flooding, earthquakes and heatwaves in recent months, claiming scores of lives and causing extensive damage.

and they’re great letters,” he said.

His supporters laughed and applauded. Trump grumbled that commentators would cast him as “unpresidential” for describing Kim in such glowing terms. (RTRS)

Kim gifts Moon dogs:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in received a pair of North Korean indigenous hunting dogs from Pyongyang, his office said Sunday, the latest token of the rapidly blossoming friendship on the peninsula.

“Cheong Wa Dae (the presidential office) was offered a pair of Pungsan dogs from the North as a gift at the North-South summit and received them Thursday,” the South’s presidential office said in a statement.

The canines, both aged around one, were handed over via the truce village of Panmunjom with three kilograms of dog food to “help with their adaptation”, it added.

Known for its loyalty and cleverness, the Pungsan breed — a hunting dog with thick, creamy white coat, pointy ears and hazel eyes — is one of the National Treasures of North Korea. (AFP)