Koizumi Will Remain Head of Ruling Party
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Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was reanointed president of his ruling party, winning a full two-year term and setting the stage for the popular leader’s real battle to implement painful reforms.
Koizumi’s biggest immediate headache, though, was a diplomatic one mostly of his own making.
He must decide soon whether to go ahead with a proposed visit to a Shinto shrine for war dead where war criminals are also enshrined, a move that would outrage China and South Korea.
“I have many headaches,” Koizumi said. “Every time I climb one mountain, there is another to climb.”
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