THE US said it would pull 9000 Marines out of Japan and redeploy them to Australia, Guam and Hawaii. The move seeks to ease a long-running standoff over the future of the US' huge military presence in one of its top Asian allies. Withdrawing troops was originally part of plans to move a busy US airbase on Okinawa to another area of Japan but US officials decided to separate the two issues due to ongoing opposition to the base relocation. In a joint statement issued in Washington and Tokyo, the two sides said they remained committed to move the Futenma...