Obama’s Japan visit prompts protests

In Japan, thousands of people are expected to rally against the American military presence in their country as US President Barack Obama arrives in Tokyo.

Thousands of demonstrators will march through the capital, Tokyo. Over 16-thousand police have been deployed to guard key sites in Tokyo against possible threats.

Obama arrived on Air Force One at Haneda airport in Tokyo on the first leg of a nine-day tour of Asia.

Obama will hold talks with Japan’s new Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama later on Friday. The US military presence in Okinawa is expected to top the agenda.

On Thursday, Japanese peace activists held protests near the US embassy in Tokyo against the US military presence and also criticized Obama for not taking time to visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, sites of the US atomic bomb attacks.

The bombs killed as many as 140000 people in Hiroshima and 80000 in Nagasaki by the end of 1945.

The protests came after about 21,000 Japanese gathered in the Okinawan city of Nago on Sunday to demand Obama that US military personnel find a new place to go.

Tokyo and Washington have been at loggerheads with each other over the presence of US military forces in the country after the new Japanese government took power in September.

Washington has been urging Tokyo to implement a previously signed deal to relocate American troops on the island.

Hatoyama’s government wants the US to move its troops off the island, and even Japan altogether. Hatoyama has promised to set up more independent ties with the US.

US troops have been continuously stationed on the island since 1945.

Washington has about 47,000 troops based in Japan, more than half of them on Okinawa. Local residents have been angered by crimes committed by US service personnel as well as the risk of accidents.

In 1995, rape of a schoolgirl by three US servicemen infuriated residents of Okinawa. Demands to close the base on safety grounds grew when a US helicopter crashed in the grounds of a local university in 2004.