The southern Japanese city of Iwakuni on Sunday overwhelmingly rejected in a nonbinding vote the relocation of a U.S. naval air wing. A total of 43,433 residents in the city voted against the relocation; just 5,369 voted in favor, final results showed.
The plan to move the wing to Iwakuni is still under negotiation between Tokyo and Washington.
The plans call for the air wing from the USS Kitty Hawk aircraft carrier, now based near Tokyo, to be moved to the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, 450 miles southwest of the capital.
Under the plan, about 57 aircraft, including F/A-18 fighters, and 1,600 troops would relocate to the base. Currently 3,500 U.S. troops, most of them Marines, are stationed there.
Nigeria: Peace proposals for Darfur
African Union mediators presented cease-fire proposals Sunday for the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, asking rebels and the Sudanese government to work together to end military activity against relief supply routes and refugee camps. The new proposals require forces of the rebel Sudanese Liberation Movement and the Justice and Equality Movement to withdraw behind buffer zones specified by African Union peacekeepers, and work with the Sudan government to end military activities affecting humanitarian aid and the refugees.
Cameroon: Avian flu spreads
The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu was detected for the first time in poultry in Myanmar and Cameroon, officials in the two nations said, in the latest sign of the disease’s expanding range in Africa and Asia. Cameroon becomes the fourth African country to be struck by the bird flu virus.
Israel: U.S. was told of border plan
Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert approached the United States with his plan to determine Israel’s borders before making it public, an Olmert aide said Sunday. Olmert said last week that he planed to move tens of thousands of settlers from their present West Bank locations into the larger settlement blocs, and maintain control of the strategic Jordan River valley and Jerusalem holy sites. The plan effectively leaves the rest of the territory for the Palestinians. The United States “neither approved nor objected to it,” the aide said.
Venezuela: Revised flag is hoisted
Venezuela’s president raised a new national flag Sunday with changes that he said pay tribute to the independence hero Simon Bolivar. The flag proposed by President Hugo Chavez features a white horse galloping left instead of right, an additional star, a bow and arrow representing Venezuela’s indigenous people and a machete to represent the labor of workers, among other changes.
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