Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan and was airlifted to a hospital but he was not breathing and his heart had stopped, officials said.
Abe has been out of office for nearly two years, and gun crime in Japan is extremely rare, so these were some real out of the blue headlines.
Japan's former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was shot during a campaign speech Friday in western Japan and was airlifted to a hospital but he was not breathing and his heart had stopped, officials said.
Abe has been out of office for nearly two years, and gun crime in Japan is extremely rare, so these were some real out of the blue headlines.
Just awful about Abe. Killed by an apparently homemade gun in a nation whose annual murder rate is about 0.25 per 100,000 people. By comparison, the U.S. rate is about 5.00 per 100,000 people (or 20 times higher). Japan saw just nine murders committed with a gun in 2018 -- the last year I can find data for both countries -- as compared to the U.S., which has that many gun murders every 2.5 hours. (The U.S. is nearly three times larger, so adjust that number to every 7.5 hours if you like.)
Edited to add the statement on Abe's death issued by former U.S. President Barack Obama:
I am following the developing political unrest in the UK, an island country off the coast of Europe under rule of an ailing monarch and a corruption-laden government, with deep concern. I urge the international community to keep the people of the UK in its thoughts and prayers.
If there was anything that depressed him more than his own cynicism, it was that quite often it still wasn't as cynical as real life.
So you guys are smart and thoughtful. What's the end point for Sri Lanka? The economy has collapsed completely, their crop yields have fallen off a cliff due to an import ban on fertilizer, and their head of state just did a runner in a military jet. Is the rest of the Indian Subcontinent bracing for a refugee crisis? How will this stabilize?
Unfortunately I have ideas about how it *won't* stabilize rather than how it will.
The global community won't send fertilizer. They'll send food. So the farmers will still be unable to produce sufficient crop yields and dependence on foreign aid will be the norm.
The global community will likely send "UN Peace Keepers" which will do little to 'keep the peace' and just brutalize the most vulnerable.
The global community will shake their collective heads about how tragic but please don't come to "our" countries.
The global community won't send medicines or generators to allow local doctors to continue working, they'll send their own doctors who obviously "know better"
The dumbest thing I've ever bought
was a 2020 planner.
"Does anyone ever think about Denethor, the guy driven to madness by staying up late into the night alone in the dark staring at a flickering device he believed revealed unvarnished truth about the outside word, but which in fact showed mostly manipulated media created by a hostile power committed to portraying nothing but bad news framed in the worst possible way in order to sap hope, courage, and the will to go on? Seems like he's someone we should think about." - Dave_LF
Thanks for asking, River. It has definitely been on my mind. Unfortunately, I am no more optimistic than elengil. But hoping to be proven wrong.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose.
Top row: Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, Tom Tugendhat, the chair of the Commons foreign affairs select committee, and former equalities minister Kemi Badenoch
Bottom row: Attorney General Suella Braverman (she has now been eliminated and has pledged her support to Truss), Sunak (the former chancellor), and former Defense Secretary Penny Mordaunt.
I think.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
When the night has been too lonely, and the road has been too long,
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snows,
Lies the seed, that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes The Rose.
He got the highest count in the last vote, but I don't know if that makes him the favorite in the final vote. Túrin would likely know more.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
I could post some articles, but I sure would like to hear from River first.
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
"Spirits in the shape of hawks and eagles flew ever to and from his halls; and their eyes could see to the depths of the seas, and pierce the hidden caverns beneath the world."
