Word: abely
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...less than a year ago that a newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe - the son of a Foreign Minister and the grandson of a Prime Minister - opened the Japanese legislature, the Diet, with an ambitious call to remake the country's postwar system, to create what he termed "a beautiful Japan." His vision was of an influential and energetic Japan, one that would not be bound by the pacifism that he believed had been forced on the Japanese in the wake of World War II, a nation whose presence on the geopolitical stage would finally match its economic muscle...
...paper revealed more shocking historical secrets than The Da Vinci Code. It informed us that the seer Nostradamus had an idiot brother, Nostradumbass. One cover story declared that President Lincoln was actually a woman. The headline: "Abe Was a Babe!" In its approach to modern political issues, the paper was always pro-alien - Martians, not Mexicans...
...part of the shuffle, Abe's close ally, former foreign minister Taro Aso, now becomes party secretary general; his place is taken by legislator Nobutaka Machimura, the head of the LDP's biggest faction. Civilian appointee Hiroya Masuda, a former prefectural governor and regional reformer, becomes Abe's interior minister in charge of addressing the concerns rural voters left out of Japan's urban-centered economic recovery. Popular LDP member of parliament Yoichi Masuzoe, a vocal critic of Abe's, will become minister of health, labor and welfare. It's an important but uncoveted position: Masuzoe must untangle the mishandling...
...Abe was once hailed as the third most popular Prime Minister in postwar Japan, but his recent missteps - and those of his advisers - have precipitated a rapid fall from grace. He stood behind a health minister who called women "baby making machines," a defense minister who remarked that the dropping of the Nagasaki bomb "couldn't be helped" and an agricultural minister whose suspected involvement in financial scandals led him to commit suicide. In making his goal of amending Japan's pacifist constitution to allow a more robust foreign policy the cornerstone of the LDP's July election campaign, Abe...
...After the announcement of his new cabinet Monday, a somber Abe appeared before reporters Monday night to show that he too was a changed man. The Prime Minister who swept into office carrying the reform torch of his predecessor Junichiro Koizumi described the changes as "unfortunate" and painful, but necessary. Moreover, during the 20-minute press conference, he wholly ignored the subject of constitutional amendment, and mentioned his other favorite subject, North Korean abductions, only after a reporter's prompting. "I believe the new cabinet has appropriate people placed in appropriate places," he told reporters. Jun Iio, a political science...