Okinawa ‘votes against’ US base move

NAGO, Japan: Voters on the Japanese island of Okinawa have rejected the relocation of a controversial US military base, according to exit polls from a non-binding referendum cited by local media on Sunday.

It was not immediately clear whether sufficient numbers of opponents had turned out to meet the threshold required for Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki to "respect" the result of the symbolic referendum. For this to happen, one quarter of the eligible electorate -- or around 290,000 people -- had to vote for one of the three options: for or against relocation or a third choice of "neither".