by Bill Emmott at Asia Times
Japan is well known to be one of the safest countries in the world. Gun ownership is tightly controlled and tends to be limited only to the members of organized crime syndicates, who are known as yakuza.
The sole case of political violence during the past half century was a terrorist attack on the Tokyo underground railway in 1995 by a small, somewhat lunatic cult called Aum Shinrikyo.
Like any country, Japan sees occasional random acts of violence by troubled individuals, but nothing of a political nature. That is why the assassination of the country’s longest-serving prime minister, Shinzo Abe, is both surprising and, of course, shocking.
On Sunday July 10th Japan goes to the polls for elections to its House of Councillors,…
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