Jordan agrees to host a US training program for Iraqi troops to check the resurgence of Al-Qaida-linked militants in Iraq; Efforts to relocate a US base on Japan’s Okinawa suffers setback
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    • JANUARY 13- 19

    According to reports, Jordan is ready to host a US training program for Iraqi troops to help counter a resurgence of al-Qaida-linked militants in its neighbor, Jordon’s Information Minister Mohammed Momani said in remarks published on January 19. His comments come as Iraqi forces are locked in battles with anti-government militants who have gained ground in Anbar province west of Baghdad amid a spike in violence across the country. “Jordan welcomes positively the US request to train Iraqi forces on its territory,” Information Minister Mohammed Momani said, in statement carried in the government newspaper Al-Rai. “This project is part of permanent cooperation between Jordan, Iraq and the United States to fight against terrorism in the region.”. 1
    Meanwhile, according to reports, efforts to relocate a US base on Japan’s Okinawa appeared to suffer a new setback Sunday, 17 years after they began, with the reported electoral victory of an opponent of the project. The mayor of the town of Nago on the east coast of Okinawa has won re-election, according to the TBS news station after the majority of votes were counted. Susumu Inamine, supported by several leftist parties, is a strong opponent of the joint project by the US and Japanese governments to move the US Marines’ Futenma Air Station, sited in an urban area in the south of Okinawa, to Nago bay. The mayoral race pitted Inamine against Bunshin Suematsu, who supports the move. Last month, more than 17 years after Washington and Tokyo agreed to move the base from the densely populated urban area, the Okinawa government finally consented to a landfill that will enable new facilities to be built on the coast at Nago. The issue had been deadlocked for years, with huge opposition to any new base among Okinawans fed up with playing host to an outsized share of the US military presence in Japan. 2

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