On January 17, 19 year-old Rika Chinen from Okinawa Shogaku High School obtained the special-A grade, the highest grade of the United Nations Associations Test of English that requires skills to communicate freely at international conference level.
In the afternoon on January 22, Okinawan leaders held a rally at the Naha Civic Hall to request that the U.S. and Japanese governments rescind the deployment of the Osprey to Okinawa.
In the afternoon of January 16, at the Naha Municipal Office, the U.S. Consul-General in Okinawa Alfred R. Magleby met Naha Mayor Takeshi Onaga in order to apologize for the series of crimes that U.S. servicemen committed at the end of last year.