Tokyo
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has asked elderly politicians not to run for re-election to parliament, saying he wants his Liberal Democratic Party to have a more youthful image. Many people found the request rude, as age commands respect in Japan. One 83-year-old politician, former prime minister Yasuhiro Nakasone, said last month that Koizumi was engaging in “a kind of political terrorism.” This week, Nakasone finally agreed to retire. Yet his farewell haiku implied that he would continue playing a political role: “With dusk yet to come / Cicada persists in song / While it still has life.”
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