Shinzo Abe death live updates: Biden orders US flags flown at half-staff to honor Shinzo Abe

There will be no change of guard ceremony on the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Saturday as the government announced a day of mourning as a mark of respect to former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe.Abe (67), one of his nation's most powerful and influential figures, died after being shot during a campaign speech on Friday in western Japan, according to NHK public television.Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a national mourning after news of Abe's death was made public.

President Joe Biden said on Friday he had ordered U.S. flags to be flown at half-staff through July 10 to honor Shinzo Abe after the former Japanese prime minister was gunned down while campaigning for a parliamentary election.Abe "was a proud servant of the Japanese people and a faithful friend to the United States," Biden said in statement. "Even in the moment he was attacked and killed, he was engaged in the work of democracy, to which he dedicated his life."

Moments before he was fatally shot from behind on Friday, Japanese former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was doing what he'd done for decades: getting up close to the crowds and stumping for a local candidate.As is typical in Japan, where violent crime is rare and guns are scarce, security appeared to be light on Friday morning as Abe spoke at an intersection outside the Yamato-Saidaiji Station in the western city of Nara.

ritain's Queen Elizabeth said she was “deeply saddened” by the death of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday."My family and I were deeply saddened to hear the news of the sudden and tragic death of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe," said the 96-year-old monarch, who added she had fond memories of meeting Abe and his wife during their 2016 visit to Britain.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said former Japanese premier Shinzo Abe was a trusted friend of India, and will be remembered by the people for years to come.Abe, one of his nation's most powerful and influential figures, died after being shot during a campaign speech on Friday in western Japan.Paying his respects to Abe while speaking at the inaugural Arun Jaitley Memorial Lecture here, Modi said it is a day of great loss and unbearable pain for him as he has lost a close friend.

The suspected killer of Japan's former prime minister Shinzo Abe admitted targeting him and said he held a grudge against an organisation he believed the politician was connected to, police said Friday."The suspect stated that he held a grudge against a particular organisation, and that he committed the crime because he believed former prime minister Abe had a connection to it," a senior police officer in Japan's Nara region told reporters, declining to give further details.

Japanese police on Friday named the suspected killer of former prime minister Shinzo Abe as unemployed 41-year-old Tetsuya Yamagami, who told officers he had used a handmade gun. "That's the suspect's assertion, and we have determined that (the gun) is clearly handmade in appearance, although our analysis is currently ongoing," a police officer in Nara region, where the assassination took place, told reporters.

Born into a prominent political family, Shinzo Abe, who was fatally shot at a campaign event Friday in western Japan, had been the country’s longest-serving prime minister.While credited with bringing a degree of stability to Japan following a period of economic malaise and constant turnover among leaders, Abe angered neighbors South Korea and China — along with many Japanese — with his nationalistic rhetoric and calls to revise the country’s pacifist constitution.