Word: aso
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...would be the youngest Japanese Prime Minister in postwar history. His crushing lead in the LDP race?Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki and Foreign Minister Taro Aso, his only opponents, are way behind?means he has been able to run a cautious, purposefully vague campaign, releasing a policy platform that runs to just four pages. "Right now he has the ability to be all things to all people," says Kent Calder, director of the Edwin O. Reischauer Center for East Asian Studies at Johns Hopkins University. "But that will narrow over time." What's certain is that Abe's agenda will...
...main opponents, Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, has come out against the Yasukuni visits, while another, Foreign Minister Taro Aso, wants to sidestep the issue by transforming the shrine into a state-sponsored memorial, instead of a religious one. But Tanigaki and Aso are only polling in the single digits, and the LDP stalwarts who will be voting in the party election tend to be conservative. Abe will have to decide eventually. Many observers assume that his past record means he will make the trip as Prime Minister at some point. But with Abe's proven conservative bona-fides, he might...
...When intelligence reports first surfaced in late June that North Korea had begun fueling booster rockets capable of launching various types of its missiles, Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso warned that a test would prompt a "very vehement" reaction from Japan. He said his government would consider immediate economic sanctions, and would recommend that the U.N. Security Council take action. Since then, various Japanese leaders, including Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe and Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, have reiterated that threat...
...Aso's statements came after days of speculation over North Korean's nuclear weapons and missile development programs. According to South Korean and Japanese news reports over the weekend that cited unnamed diplomatic sources in Washington, Seoul and Tokyo, North Korea has apparently fueled numerous booster rockets capable of launching a Taepodong-2 missile in the country's northeast. The Taepodong-2 is believed to possess a range capable of hitting Alaska. U.S. and Japanese government spokesmen have both warned North Korea not to conduct a test. White House spokesman Tony Snow told CNN on Sunday that if North Korea...
...abducted throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In Japan, the emotional issue of abducted citizens has become almost as large an issue as North Korea's nuclear ambitions. In the past few years, Japan has passed several laws that would make financial sanctions on North Korea easier to implement, and Aso said that "many possible sanctions are on the table," including restricting financial transfers and ferry travel between the two countries...