Born into a prominent political family, former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, who was shot dead at a campaign event in western Japan yesterday, had been the country’s longest-serving leader since World War II.
While credited with bringing a degree of stability to Japan following a period of economic malaise, Abe angered neighbors South Korea and China — along with many Japanese — with a rhetoric many deemed nationalistic and calls to revise the country’s pacifist constitution.
Abe was born in Tokyo on Sept. 21, 1954, the son of Shintaro Abe, who served as Japanese minister of foreign affairs from 1982 to 1986, and grandson of former Japanese prime minister Nobusuke Kishi.
Photo: AFP
He in 1977 graduated from Tokyo’s Seikei University with a degree in political science, after which he moved to the US to study public policy at the University of Southern California.
After returning to Japan and working in the management of a steel manufacturer for three years, he started to pursue a career at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Running for the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), he was in 1993 elected to parliament, representing the southwestern prefecture of Yamaguchi. Shinzo Abe, already viewed as a conservative at the time, was a member of the party’s Mori faction, which had once been headed by his father, who died in 1991.
Abe was in 2005 appointed Japanese chief cabinet secretary under then-Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. After leading negotiations to return Japanese abducted to North Korea, he was the same year elected head of the LDP.
On Sept. 26, 2006, he became prime minister for the first time, overseeing economic reforms while taking a hard line on North Korea and seeking to engage with South Korea and China.
Following electoral defeats that saw the LDP lose control of the legislature for the first time in 52 years, Abe in 2007 resigned as prime minister, citing health reasons.
In 2012, Abe became prime minister for a second time and a year later launched economic reforms dubbed “Abenomics.”
He served four terms, seeking closer ties with Western powers and distancing the country form China.
On Aug. 28, 2020, he announced that he would step down, again citing health reasons.
Despite leaving office, Abe in 2020 showed that he can still rile up Beijing with comments on Taiwan, warning that “military adventure would lead to economic suicide.”
SPEAKING OUT: After Siranudh Scott’s allegations surfaced, celebrities and public figures took to social media to share their own experiences of sexual misconduct and abuse A high-profile alleged sexual abuse case within a wealthy Thai beer brewing family has prompted a wave of painful accounts from survivors of unconnected abuse in the conservative nation. Siranudh Scott, a member of the billionaire Thai family that founded the ubiquitous Singha beer brand, posted an emotional video this month accusing his elder brother Sunit of repeatedly abusing him when he was a teenager. Sunit, who is in his 30s, later denied the allegations in a video posted online, but Singha parent Boonrawd dismissed him from his executive role with the company on Tuesday last week. “I felt I needed to speak
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
COMMUNITY CONFLICT: Concerns about disease spread from corpses has run up against friends and families’ desire to bury their dead as infection spreads in the area Angry residents of a town at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DR Congo) attacked and burned a tent that was part of a health center where people are being treated for the virus, the staff there said Saturday. It was the second such attack in the region in a week. No one was hurt in the attack, according to reports but as patients ran out to escape the fire, 18 people with suspected Ebola infections fled the facility and are unaccounted for, a hospital director said. Angry residents arrived at the clinic in the
INSURGENT ACTION: A local independence movement in Balochistan, alleged by Pakistan’s government to be backed by India, claimed responsibility for the strike A suicide bomber detonated an vehicle-borne IED near a railway as a passenger train passed through the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta yesterday, killing at least 23 people and wounding over 70, officials said. The explosion caused two of the train cars to overturn and catch fire, according to footage shared online. The attack happened in an area where security forces are usually stationed, badly damaging several nearby buildings and smashing more than a dozen vehicles parked along the road, according to witnesses and images circulating on social media. Doctors at local hospitals said they had received the wounded, with 20 in critical
RSS