Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Japan for former PM Shinzo Abe's funeral. (Twitter/@narendramodi)Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who arrived in Tokyo to attend the state funeral of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, met sitting PM Fumio Kishida Tuesday. Modi will join several global leaders to pay tributes to Abe. Representatives from over 100 countries, including more than 20 heads of state and governments, are expected to attend Abe’s funeral on Tuesday.
Tight security is in place for the event which has split the country and a large number of uniformed police officers have been deployed around the Budokan hall, where the funeral is being held, and major train stations. VIPs are to include US Vice President Kamala Harris, prime ministers Anthony Albanese of Australia, Narendra Modi of India and Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, Vietnamese President Nguyen Xuan Phuc and European Council President Charles Michel. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cancelled his planned attendance to focus on responding to a powerful storm, as per a Reuters update.
Abe was shot from close range by a man with a homemade gun while on the campaign trail in the western city of Nara. He was pronounced dead at the hospital on July 8.
A photograph of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a makeshift memorial at the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) headquarters in Tokyo, Japan, on July 11, 2022.
Just in: Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida in Tokyo.
➡️ Japan is implementing maximum-scale security. Up to 20,000 police officers, including about 2,500 brought to the capital from across Japan, are being deployed in Tokyo, local media reported.
➡️ Officers and sniffer dogs have been ramping up anti-terrorism patrols at major rail stations and Tokyo's Haneda Airport in recent days, according to the reports.
➡️ Police are patrolling expressways for any suspicious objects and checking around embassies and hotels where foreign guests are staying, the reports said. Police are also looking inside manholes and the moats, with divers, near the venue, the reports said. (Reuters)
A lavish, taxpayer-funded funeral for Japanese former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has triggered a public backlash against the ruling party he led for years.
The rising cost of the funeral, which the government estimates at 1.65 billion yen ($11.5 million), has added fuel to the fire at a time of economic hardship for many. Japan’s last fully state-funded funeral for a prime minister was for Shigeru Yoshida in 1967. Subsequent ones have been paid for by both the state and Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in Tokyo Tuesday to attend the state funeral of former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe. Modi will join several global leaders to pay tributes to Abe.