Former Japan Prime Minister Shinzo Abe passes away

Highlights:

• Shinzo Abe, Former Japan’s Prime Minister, who was shot at during an election campaign in western Japan’s Nara city, has passed away. 
• The Nara fire department had earlier said that the 67-year-old Abe was in cardiopulmonary arrest before he was taken to the hospital.
• He had been wounded on the right side of the neck and the left clavicle.

• Shinzo Abe served twice as Japan's prime minister, first from 2006 to 2007 and again from 2012 to 2020.

  He first came to power in 2006 when he became the prime minister. 

  After five years, Shinzo Abe then led his party LDP to a landslide victory in the 2012 Lower House election and became Japan’s PM again.

  The leader hailed from a powerful political family that has been in politics for decades. 

• His grandfather served as prime minister between 1957 and 1960, and Abe's father served as foreign minister.

• At 52, he was Japan's youngest post-war PM. However, he stepped down and resigned a year later as the Liberal Democratic Party lost an Upper House election.

• It was the first assassination of a sitting or former Japanese premier since the days of prewar militarism in the 1930s.