{"id":266805,"date":"2020-08-28T03:01:14","date_gmt":"2020-08-28T07:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=266805"},"modified":"2020-08-28T03:01:14","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T07:01:14","slug":"japan-pm-abe-to-step-down-after-record-long-tenure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/08\/28\/japan-pm-abe-to-step-down-after-record-long-tenure\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan PM Abe to step down after record-long tenure"},"content":{"rendered":"
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FILE: Prime Minister Abe held a press conference (April 1) at the Prime Minister\u2019s Office to mark the Cabinet decision on his Prime Minister\u2019s Statement. (Photo<\/a>: Prime Minister’s Office of Japan\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

TOKYO<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will step down from his post due to health concerns, a source from his ruling Liberal Democratic Party said Friday.<\/p>\n

Abe, who has been premier since December 2012 following his first one-year stint in the post between 2006 and 2007, just recently achieved the feat of staying in the top government post for the longest uninterrupted term in the country’s history.<\/p>\n

The 65-year-old president of the LDP made a series of hospital visits in August for what his aides called a “regular health checkup” and follow-ups after he was reported as having vomited blood at the prime minister’s office in early July.<\/p>\n

Questions about Abe’s health have been raised from time to time after he abruptly resigned due to worsening of his chronic illness — ulcerative colitis — in 2007, only a year after becoming the country’s youngest premier in the postwar era at age 52.<\/p>\n

After returning to power in 2012, Abe said he had overcome the intestinal disease with the help of a new drug. On Aug. 24, he became Japan’s longest-serving prime minister by number of consecutive days in office, eclipsing the previous record of 2,798 days held by his great uncle Eisaku Sato (1901-1975).<\/p>\n

But Abe’s health came under fresh scrutiny with his repeated hospital visits after he kept a low profile without holding any press conferences for nearly 50 days between mid-June and early August, despite calls for him to explain the government’s handling of the coronavirus to the public.\u00a0(Kyodo)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TOKYO\u00a0\u2013 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will step down from his post due to health concerns, a source from his …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":210691,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","mauthors-kyodo","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":266806,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266805\/revisions\/266806"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/210691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}