Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has announced he would resign effective September 19 after almost a year in office. Abe and his party, the Liberal Democrats (LDP), have had problems dealing with a financial crisis as well as an inability to gather public support, much less so than the charismatic and well-coifed former prime minister Junichiro Koizumi. His likely successor is the manga-loving Taro Aso, Abe’s foreign minister.
Also today: Russian President Vladimir Putin named a relatively unknown longtime associate, Viktor Zubkov, to take over as prime minister after Mikhail Frekhov resigned yesterday. A loyal follower of Kremlin orders, Frekhov said that he stepped down “so Putin would have a free hand to create a new government in the run-up to the presidential election”.
