Off the wire
• Iran reiterates support for Syria in fighting terror  • French hostage in Yemen appeals for release  • President Xi calls for integrity, patriotism among children  • S. Africa apologizes over xenophobic attacks  • Sharapova crashes out of Roland Garros before quarterfinals (updated with quotes)  • MS760 AG to co-establish production facility with Fujian company  • German machine orders drop in April  • China's first MERS patient in stable condition  • Feature: Children in Iraq suffer from war trauma  • Top Chinese legislator to visit Russia, ROK, India  
You are here: 　 Home

Japan's former lower house speaker Machimura dies at 70

Xinhua, June 1, 2015 Adjust font size:

Former speaker of Japanese House of Representatives Nobutaka Machimura died Monday in Tokyo of a stroke at the age of 70, local media reported.

The bureaucrat-turned-lawmaker stepped down as lower house speaker on April 21 after suffering a mild stroke. He was Chief Cabinet Secretary in the government of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda from 2007 to 2008 and twice minister for Foreign Affairs in the cabinets of Junichiro Koizumi and Shinzo Abe.

Machimura was a rival to Shinzo Abe, the incumbent prime minister, in a failed bid for president of the Liberal Democratic Party in 2012, three months before it returned to power in a landslide victory in the general election in December that year.

"I'm saddened by the sudden news," Abe told reporters at the prime minister's office, expressing condolences to Machimura's family, according to Kyodo News Agency. Endi