Shinzo Abe

TOKYO, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Almost four out of five Japanese voters want Prime Minister Taro Aso to quit within months and just over half want the opposition to win power, a poll showed on Monday, the latest bad news for the ruling party in an election year. Public support for 68-year-old Aso, already slumping after policy flip-flops and gaffes, took another hit when close ally Shoichi Nakagawa quit as finance minister last week after being forced to deny he was drunk at a G7 news conference in Rome. Some in Aso's own conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) have called for him to be ... Read Full Story

Tokyo - Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) is aiming for a parliamentary lower house election on October 26, the country’s biggest newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported Saturday. Quoting sources within the LDP, it said the lower house of parliament would probably we dissolved on October 3, by which time the party would have a new president who would have been made prime minister by the lower house, where the LDP has a majority. There are five candidates to succeed outgoing party chief and prime minister Yasuo Fukuda, including front runner and former foreign minister Taro Aso, and the first female candidate Yuriko Koike. Koike ... Read Full Story

According to a new book , “Scoop” by Pascal Roustain, former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan was explaining to President Bush the various ways a Japanese person would bow when meeting someone. He then got on his knees to prostrate himself before Bush in order to indicate this was the position the president wanted people to be in when conversing with him. If one considers how Bush reacted to those in America who dared opposing his political decisions, the prime minister’s position reflects our president’s desire to have the entire nation prostrate themselves because he alone knew what was best– after all, his ... Read Full Story

TOKYO, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Popular former Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi blasted incumbent Taro Aso on Thursday for rejecting reforms at the core of his agenda and questioned whether Aso could lead the ruling party to victory at the polls. The rare public criticism by Koizumi was the latest headache for Aso, whose support has sunk below 20 percent ahead of an election this year the ruling bloc could well lose, ending more than 50 years of nearly unbroken reign by the conservative Liberal Democratic Party. "Rather than being angry, I am totally appalled by what the prime minister has recently been saying," ... Read Full Story

Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe signed a partnership accord with Iraq on Wednesday, on a rare visit to the country for a senior leader of the close US ally. Abe, who was premier from 2006 to 2007, travelled as a special envoy of Prime Minister Taro Aso. He flew to Baghdad after participating in the Global Competitiveness Forum in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. In Baghdad, he met President Jalal Talabani and signed the Japan-Iraq partnership, which is aimed at strengthening the relationship in areas of economy and energy, chief cabinet secretary Takeo Kawamura told reporters. The Iraqi president said in a statement ... Read Full Story