Japan

TOKYO (Reuters) - A group of lawmakers led by Japanese Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso will back Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga for the next premier, Kyodo news agency reported on Monday, giving Suga a boost from one of the largest factions within the ruling party.

Aso’s faction comprises 54 lawmakers, according to a spokeswoman from the faction’s office.

Former Defence Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida as well as Suga are seen as major contenders in the race to succeed Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s plan to more than triple its coronavirus testing is unlikely to improve its fight against the outbreak without an overhaul in the test approval process, which has kept daily coronavirus-testing well below capacity, experts say.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who announced his resignation on Friday due to health reasons, said on the same day the government would increase testing capacity to 200,000 a day.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga will join the race to succeed his boss Shinzo Abe as prime minister, local media said on Sunday, as the competition heats up to succeed Japan’s longest-serving leader.

Suga, a longtime lieutenant of Abe’s in a key supporting role, had denied interest in the top job but attracted attention with a series of interviews, to Reuters and other news organisations, in the days before Abe’s abrupt resignation for health reasons.

TOKYO, August 29. /TASS/: Relations between Japan and Russia got a boost under incumbent Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2012 words about the need to reach a hikiwake (a judo term for a draw) on the territorial dispute, Senior Research Fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation Taisuke Abiru told TASS on Saturday.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s ruling party will choose Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s successor around Sept. 15, Kyodo news agency said on Saturday, after Abe abruptly announced his resignation for health reasons on Friday.

The president of Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party is virtually assured of being prime minister because of the LDP’s majority in parliament’s lower house.

TOKYO (Reuters) - Yoshihide Suga, a longtime lieutenant of Japan’s Shinzo Abe, has emerged as a strong contender to succeed him as prime minister, an outcome that would extend the fiscal and monetary stimulus that defined Abe’s nearly eight years in office.

Abe, Japan’s longest-serving premier, said on Friday he was stepping down due to a worsening of a chronic illness, setting the stage for a leadership election within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Defence Minister Taro Kono said on Saturday he had agreed with his U.S. counterpart Mark Esper that both countries opposed any unilateral attempt to change the status quo in the key waterways of the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

Kono shared his view with the U.S. defense secretary at a time when the United States and China are at loggerheads over issues ranging from technology and human rights to Chinese military activities in the disputed South China Sea.

TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said he is stepping down because a chronic health problem has resurfaced. He told reporters Friday that it was “gut wrenching” to leave many of his goals unfinished.

TOKYO, August 28. /TASS/: Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced that the government will continue pursuing efforts to strike a peace treaty with Russia even after his resignation, he told a press conference in Tokyo Friday, adding that he regrets not resolving this issue.

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed intention to step down, citing his declining health, according to Japan’s NHK television and other media.

Japan’s Prime Minister’s Office said the report could not be immediately confirmed, but that Abe was believed to be meeting top ruling officials at the party headquarters.

Concerns about Abe’s chronic health issue, simmering since earlier this summer, intensified this month when he visited a Tokyo hospital two weeks in a row for unspecified health checkups.