Word: abe
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...Indeed, until the end Abe continued to beat the foreign-policy drum without acknowledging the primary cause of his dismal approval ratings. On Sept. 9, while hobnobbing with other international leaders at this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Sydney, Japan's Premier laid down a surprising ultimatum: he would resign if parliament did not extend legislation allowing the Japanese navy to refuel American ships supporting military operations in Afghanistan past a Nov. 1 deadline. Abe argued that the DPJ's opposition to the naval commitment would only reinforce Japan's image as an immature global power unwilling...
...fight promised to be ugly, but the issue would have taken weeks - if not months - to work its way through the Diet. So why did Abe, only three days after promising to fight on, decide to throw in the towel? Plagued by rumors of chronic ill health, he looked exhausted in the days before his resignation announcement. "Abe broke under the pressure," says Norihiko Narita, a politics professor at Surugadai University near Tokyo. "The weight of his responsibilities was just too much." For his part, Ozawa expressed bewilderment over the about-face. "I have been in politics nearly 40 years...
...very positive." But that public warmth seemed to last about as long as a Lindsay Lohan rehab stint. Just days later, India, Australia, Japan and the U.S. held a comprehensive naval exercise, the first appearance of the Seventh Fleet in the Bay of Bengal since 1971, while Shinzo Abe, then Japanese Prime Minister, called for an "arc of freedom" across Asia, linking the region's democracies...
...political deathwatch on Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe began minutes after his ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) suffered a historic defeat in elections at the end of July, leaving the opposition in charge of the legislature's upper house for the first time in Japan's postwar history. Abe resisted immediate calls for his resignation and seemed ready to battle for his job in the face of public antipathy. But on Sept. 12 the "fighting politician," as Abe liked to call himself, suddenly lost his stomach for the fight and submitted his resignation to a shocked Japan. "The people need...
...will choose a new leader--and the next Prime Minister--on Sept. 19, and the odds-on favorite is former Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who emerged as Abe's most influential Cabinet member. That decision could be followed by early legislative elections, and unless the LDP can quickly turn its fortunes around, it could find itself out of power for only the second time in its 52-year history. "The true nature of the LDP--a dying body on life support--has been exposed by Abe's resignation," says political analyst Hirotada Asakawa...