<\/p>\n
ISTANBU: Japan\u2019s towering politician and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe died on Friday, hours after being shot when he was delivering an election campaign.
\nPrime Minister Fumio Kishida termed the attack as a \u201cbarbaric, malicious incident\u201d which is \u201ctotally intolerable\u201d, according to Anadolu Agency.
\nAbe was in the western city of Nara to seek support for a candidate of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) for weekend senate elections.
\nAt least two shots were heard and Abe fell unconscious on the ground. He was bleeding and the gunshot was fired from behind.
\nThe incident took place shortly after Abe started to speak at around 11.30am local time.
\nAssailant, 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, a resident of Nara, has been arrested and charged for attempt to murder. The shotgun used in the attack has been seized, it reported.
\nAbe had stepped down from leadership of the LDP due to acute health issues in the fall of 2020.
\n\u201cI have decided to step down as prime minister as poor health should not lead to wrong political decisions,\u201d Abe announced at the end of October 2020.
\n\u201cI will continue (my political work),\u201d added Abe, who had led the LDP as the country\u2019s longest-serving premier, besting the previous record of 2,798 days held by his great uncle, Eisaku Sato (1901-1975).
\nThe motto \u201cpolitics demands producing results\u201d was the hallmark of Abe, according to Anadolu Agency.
\nAbe, Japan\u2019s youngest prime minister when he first took office in 2006 at 52 years, underwent serious health complications at the tail end of his political career.
\nScion of a political family, his grandfather, Kishi Nobusuke, served Japan as prime minister between 1957 and 1960.
\nAlmunus of Seikei University from where he graduated in 1977, Abe briefly worked at Kobe steel between 1979 and 1982 before putting on political robes.
\nHe joined his father, politician Shintaro Abe as secretary.
\nFollowing the death of his father, who served as Japan’s foreign minister, Abe plunged into electoral politics in 1993 and was elected to the House of Representatives \u2013 the lower house of Japan\u2019s parliament, locally known as Diet.
\nHowever, the first jolt to his political career came when he suddenly resigned due to bad ulcerative colitis illness in 2007. He had been in office for just a year \u2013 September 2006 to 2007.
\nIt was the same year that his party faced an embarrassing defeat in Diet.
\nAbe made a stunning return to power in 2012, first defeating party rival Shigeru Ishiba in September to retake the LDP helm, and then leading the party to an overwhelming majority that December.
\nIt was again a political milestone \u2013 the first Japanese former premier to return to office since Shigeru Yoshida in 1948.
\nAbe\u2019s second stint as chief executive of Japan since 2012 came with a focus on the economy and pledging to pull Japan out of long-term deflation.
\nHis mantra of \u201cpolitics demands producing results\u201d started showing results as the Bank of Japan\u2019s \u201caggressive monetary stimulus program pushed down the yen against other major currencies, and drove up the earnings of big companies and share prices.\u201d
\nHe was re-elected in similar landslides in the 2014 and 2017 elections. His administration, however, did fail to meet its target of 2 per cent\u00a0annual inflation.
\nDuring his last news conference as premier, Abe also touched on Japan\u2019s security concerns.
\n\u201cNorth Korea has much capability in ballistic missiles and Japan will have to improve its security capacity,\u201d he said on Oct 2020.
\nHe will be known for his hawkish stance on China as he had promised to amend Japan\u2019s pacifist Constitution to allow for a full-fledged military.
\n\u201cUnfortunately, our neighbour (North Korea) has nuclear ambitions and to ensure the security of our country, we need a strong alliance with the US,\u201d he added.
\nAbe said Japan \u2013 the site of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings 75 years ago \u2013 would try to be a bridge between countries with nuclear arms and those without, Anadolu Agency reported.
\nHis term also saw bilateral relations with South Korea reach a new low over the issue of wartime sexual exploitation.
\nJapan\u2019s major loss under Abe was delaying by a year the world\u2019s biggest sports event \u2013 the Olympics 2020 — due to the pandemic
\nHe was seen a major actor in US\u2019 Indo-Pacific strategy that materialised in the security alliance Quad along with Australia and India.
\nA businessman from Osaka earlier told Anadolu Agency that the 2011 Fukushima tsunami shaped Abe\u2019s view of Muslims in the country.
\n\u201cAbe visited many relief camps and rescue operations and what he found is Muslims, especially from Pakistan, were everywhere,\u201d said the businessman, who asked not to be named.
\nAbe was in opposition in 2011.
\n\u201cThe Muslim groups had reached tsunami-affected spots long before government and other Japanese groups reached there,\u201d he added.
\nAfter Abe returned as premier in 2012, the businessman said: \u201cHis administration constructed Muslim prayer spaces alongside highways and in many airports.\u201d
\n\u201cAbe was in constant touch with the Muslim community,\u201d he added.
\nThe Abe administration also allotted a specific room for Muslims in the country\u2019s Japanese Language Centres for foreign students and professionals, it added.
\n\u201cIn big restaurants, he asked owners to make Halal [Muslim-approved] food available for Muslims; in the past such developments were rare,\u201d the businessman said.
\nThe major activity Abe undertook as premier with any foreign country during the pandemic in May 2020, when he virtually attended, alongside Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the opening of the Basaksehir Cam and Sakura City Hospitals in Istanbul.
\nAccording to Anadolu Agency, the\u00a0two countries have enjoyed good relations under Abe, shown by how in 2019 Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu was awarded the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Rising Sun by Japan\u2019s emperor for his efforts to strengthen bilateral relations.
\n— BERNAMA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISTANBU: Japan\u2019s towering politician and former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe died on Friday, hours after being shot when he was delivering an election campaign. Prime Minister Fumio Kishida termed the attack as a \u201cbarbaric, malicious incident\u201d which is \u201ctotally intolerable\u201d, according to Anadolu Agency. Abe was in the western city of Nara to seek […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":13763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-local-news"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13764,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13762\/revisions\/13764"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jesseltontimes.com\/wpmarch2025\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}