World

Russian troops pursued their “relentless” shelling of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region on Saturday, as the United States promised new military aid to Kyiv including powerful rocket launchers. 

Having endured long battles to capture cities in the neighbouring Lugansk region, Russia is now seeking to push deeper into Donetsk to consolidate its hold over the entire Donbas region. 

Air raid sirens sounded overnight throughout the country’s east and south.

Residents in the small town of Druzhkivka, south of the eastern Ukrainian industrial city of Kramatorsk, woke up to a suspected missile attack on Saturday which ripped apart a supermarket’s shop front and left a massive crater in front of the store.

“The entire frontline is under relentless shelling,” the head of the Donetsk military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said in a Telegram message on Friday night. 

He said the city of Sloviansk, on which Moscow’s troops have now set their sights, is being “shelled day and night”. 

He also accused Russian forces of setting agricultural fields on fire, saying they were “trying to destroy the harvest by all means”.  

In a message on Saturday, he said five civilians had been killed the day before.

The governor of the Lugansk region, Sergiy Gaiday, said on Saturday the Russians were attacking Donetsk from their bases in Lugansk.

“We are trying to contain their armed formations along the entire frontline… Where it is inconvenient for them to go forward, they create real hell, shelling the territories on the horizon,” he said.

Kyrylenko warned the Russians were in the process of replenishing their troops in the region to prepare for further assaults. 

– ‘Terrorising cities’ –

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly address he had spent the day on the frontlines in the eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, where he met civilian and military leaders. 

“Officials must do not just everything possible, but much more than even possible, to guarantee people a normal standard of living even in such wartime conditions,” he said. 

But in a Telegram message on Saturday, an official from the region’s military administration warned Russia had “intentionally shelled residential areas”, and had not stopped “terrorising” the cities and villages.

In the country’s south, the mayor of Mykolaiv begged citizens not to leave shelters, as he said explosions were heard throughout the night. 

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk was quoted by Ukrainian media as urging people in occupied areas to evacuate by any means possible. 

“Massive fighting is going to happen,” she said. 

– ‘Further evolution of support’ –

In a boost to Kyiv, Washington announced $400 million of further military aid, including a type of artillery ammunition with “greater precision” that has previously not been sent. 

“It’s a further evolution in our support for Ukraine in this battle in the Donbas,” a senior defence official was quoted by the US Department of Defence as saying. 

Also included in the aid package are four additional High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems to add to eight already in place. 

“From a security assistance perspective, this is a steady drumbeat now, and it is a long-term commitment to Ukraine,” the same official was quoted as saying. 

“We’ll be ready for whatever the experts tell us is required for the battlefield.” 

The United States was also putting the pressure on Russia diplomatically at a meeting of Group of 20 foreign ministers in Indonesia. 

Washington and allies condemned Russia’s assault ahead of the gathering before Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov faced what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called a barrage of Western criticism at the closed-door talks.

Lavrov stormed out of a morning session as German counterpart Annalena Baerbock criticised Moscow over the invasion, diplomats said.

He also left an afternoon session before Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba addressed the ministers virtually, and was not present as Blinken condemned Russia.

– ‘Strong chorus’ –

“What we’ve heard today already is a strong chorus from around the world… about the need for the aggression to end,” Blinken said on Friday from the meeting on the resort island of Bali.

Speaking outside the Mulia hotel, Lavrov remained defiant and accused Western nations of avoiding “talking about global economic issues” instead of the war.

One official told AFP even Moscow’s ally China had not offered “any full-throated endorsement” of the Russian position.

Blinken shunned a bilateral meeting with Lavrov and instead accused Russia of triggering a global food crisis, demanding Moscow allow grain shipments out of war-battered Ukraine.

“To our Russian colleagues: Ukraine is not your country. Its grain is not your grain. Why are you blocking the ports? You should let the grain out,” Blinken said in the closed-door talks, according to a Western official present.

A hearse carrying the body of assassinated former prime minister Shinzo Abe arrived in Tokyo on Saturday after he was shot at close range on the campaign trail.

The murder of Japan’s best-known politician rattled the country and sent shockwaves around the world, particularly given the nation’s low levels of violent crime and strict gun laws.

Senior members of Abe’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party lined up to pay their respects as the vehicle, believed to be carrying his wife Akie Abe, entered the couple’s residence in the capital.

The man accused of Friday’s shooting is in custody, with police saying he had confessed to killing the former premier, motivated by a belief Abe was linked to an unspecified organisation.

Police were investigating the unemployed 41-year-old’s background, including claims he had served in Japan’s navy, and said he appeared to have used a handmade gun.

Abe was delivering a speech in Nara ahead of Sunday’s upper house elections when he was shot, and campaigning resumed Saturday with politicians saying they were determined to show democracy would prevail.

“We must never allow violence to suppress speech during elections, which are the foundation of democracy,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida tweeted on Saturday after courting voters in central Japan’s Yamanashi region.

“I believe I have a responsibility to complete this House of Councillors election in a free, fair and safe manner.”

Japanese media at Kishida’s first campaign event since the assassination described a tense mood and high levels of security, with a metal fence put up to separate the leader from the crowd.

Doctors said Friday that Abe showed no vital signs when he arrived and died of enormous blood loss, despite massive transfusions.

They described multiple wounds to the politician’s neck, with the internal damage reaching as deep as his heart.

Abe’s murder shook Japan, with a visibly emotional Kishida describing the killing on Friday as a “barbaric act” that was “unforgivable”.

On Saturday afternoon, Kishida’s car was seen arriving at Abe’s residence as he went to offer condolences.

– ‘Unacceptable act’ –

International reaction was similarly stark, with US President Joe Biden saying he was “stunned, outraged and deeply saddened”, and ordering flags on US government buildings to fly at half-mast.

Even regional powers with whom Abe had clashed expressed condolences. Chinese President Xi Jinping said he was “deeply saddened” by the killing, which South Korea’s president called an “unacceptable act”.

Investigators were still piecing together a picture of the man behind the assassination and his motives.

He has been identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, and police said Friday he admitted to targeting Abe over a grudge against an organisation he believed the former leader was linked to.

They have declined to name the organisation, though Japanese media outlets described it as a religious group.

The gun he used “is clearly handmade in appearance”, investigators said, and several other apparently handmade weapons were uncovered by police in protective gear who raided Yamagami’s home on Friday.

The suspect, who has been arrested on suspicion of murder, opened fire on Abe shortly before noon on Friday.

Footage from public broadcaster NHK showed Yamagami, dressed in a grey shirt and brown trousers, approaching from behind before drawing a weapon from a bag.

At least two shots appeared to be fired, each producing a cloud of smoke. As spectators and reporters ducked, he was tackled to the ground by security.

– Funeral plans –

Japanese media reported that a wake would be held Monday evening and a funeral on Tuesday for Abe’s close family and associates.

On Friday night and Saturday morning, a steady stream of mourners came to lay flowers and pray for Abe, who had been Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.

“I just couldn’t sit back and do nothing. I had to come,” said Nara resident Sachie Nagafuji, 54, visiting the scene with his son.

Abe was the scion of a political family and became the country’s youngest post-war prime minister when he took power for the first time in 2006, aged 52.

His turbulent first term ended in resignation for health reasons, but he returned to power in 2012 and stayed in office until the return of his ulcerative colitis forced a second resignation in 2020.

His hawkish, nationalist views were divisive, particularly his desire to reform the country’s pacifist constitution to recognise the country’s military, and he weathered a series of scandals, including allegations of cronyism.

But he was lauded by others for his economic strategy, dubbed “Abenomics” and his efforts to put Japan firmly on the world stage, including by cultivating close ties with US president Donald Trump.

burs-sah-kaf/mtp

Indonesian farmer Okky Pratama usually sells dozens of cattle for Eid al-Adha, making his biggest earnings around the Islamic day of sacrifice, but this year he has sold just five.

A foot-and-mouth disease outbreak has ripped through two Indonesian provinces since April, killing thousands of cows and infecting hundreds of thousands more, raising consumer fears before the July 10 festival.

Clusters of the highly infectious animal virus in East Java and Aceh provinces have rattled cattle farmers and their output during the most profitable time of year in a country with the world’s biggest Muslim population.

“I am pessimistic about the sales. Regular buyers unusually did not send me any purchase inquiries,” said Pratama, whose cow farm in the mountainous Batu City is situated in the hardest-hit East Java province. 

“When I contacted them, they said they did not (want to) sacrifice any livestock this year because of the foot-and-mouth disease.”  

Profits from the holiday season — around 60 million rupiah ($4,000) — account for 75 percent of his annual earnings, 31-year-old Pratama told AFP. 

But he has so far lost two of his cattle to the disease — which was first detected in early May. 

Thirty-three others were infected but recovered after intensive care.

As of July 6, the disease had spread to 21 provinces across Indonesia and infected more than 320,000 livestock, according to official data. 

Over 2,100 of them have died from the disease.

– Sales struggle – 

Indonesia had been outbreak-free for 30 years, but farmers are reeling from a fresh blow to their business after the coronavirus pandemic shuttered restaurants and food stalls.

Cow-farmer Masrizal said he has struggled to sell his cattle because of sluggish demand for meat and shuttered livestock markets in Aceh province. 

“As markets are closed, I had to proactively offer the sacrificial livestock to mosques and people in villages,” he said.

The disease specifically attacks cloven-hoofed animals such as cattle, swine, sheep and goats, and the policy in Europe — such as during the British outbreak in 2001 -– has typically been to slaughter herds of animals as a precaution. 

But farmers in Indonesia are trying to keep their precious assets alive despite the risk of the disease spreading through close contact between animals, contaminated feed and farm equipment. 

Animals infected by the disease usually lose their appetite and temporarily cannot walk as they develop blisters inside the mouth and on the feet. 

– Swift vaccination key –  

The government has stepped in, setting up a task force and ordering the culling of more than 2,800 livestock.

The country’s religious affairs minister has told Muslims they “should not force themselves” to sacrifice cattle during the outbreak.

Suharyanto, the head of the government’s new task force, compared the outbreak to the Covid-19 pandemic, and Jakarta said it would attempt to administer 800,000 vaccine shots to healthy cattle by July 7, before the day of sacrifice.

“As long as the livestock are well-treated and well-fed, God willing, they can recover,” the agriculture ministry’s director of livestock production Agung Suganda said in a webinar last week. 

Suharyanto said small farmers whose cattle were culled will receive up to 10 million rupiah ($666) in compensation — well short of the thousands of dollars farmers earned from Eid sales last year. 

And the cancellation of pre-outbreak orders and demands for refunds have left farmers with “extraordinary” losses, the Indonesian Cattle and Buffalo Breeders Association (PPSKI) chairman Nanang Purus Subendro said. 

“We need to accelerate the process because we are in a race against the virus.”

Fifty years ago, the Cold War was transposed to a chessboard as Bobby Fischer of the United States took on defending world champion Boris Spassky of the Soviet Union in a thrilling East-West clash dubbed the “match of the century”.

Some 50 million TV viewers tuned into the two-month-long tussle in the Icelandic capital Reykjavik, where chess’s enfant terrible Fischer set out to wrest the championship from the Soviet Union, which had dominated the game for decades.

AFP reported daily from the competition. This account is based on its reporting.

– Polar opposites –

On one side of the table is Fischer, an eccentric, fiercely competitive 29-year-old former boy wonder, who was holding his own among America’s greats by the age of 12 and has already won eight US chess championships. 

Born in Chicago, Fischer grew up in the New York suburb of Brooklyn where his older sister taught him chess at the age of six.

He became the world’s youngest ever chess grand master at the age of 15 and dropped out of school to focus on the game.

AFP’s correspondent in Reykjavik says “he has few friends and doesn’t care to make any” and that his motto is: “It’s not enough to defeat an adversary, you have to crush them.”

He goes into the competition having won 101 out of his previous 120 games.

In the other seat is 35-year-old Boris Spassky, a trained journalist and married father of two children who has been world champion for three years. 

Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in 1937 he was sent to an orphanage in Siberia during the Nazi German siege of the city during World War II.

A pure product of the Soviet chess machine, he began playing at five and became world champion at 19.

A likeable, modest character, he is the antithesis of the cantankerous Fischer. 

– Temper tantrums –

Fischer is the first US-born player to have a stab at the title (since 1946, the two finalists have always been Soviet).

Neutral countries vie to host the match, which is eventually awarded to Iceland.

Fischer makes a series of demands before agreeing to participate. The venue, a sports hall, must be sound-proofed, fitted with a new carpet and the room temperature kept to 22.5 degrees Celsius.

But on the eve of the competition, he has still not shown up and Spassky is growing impatient. 

Henry Kissinger, who is US national security advisor at the time under President Richard Nixon, calls Fischer and convinces him to take part.

AFP reports that the US champion “appears tired” when he lands in Reykjavik on July 4. He ducks out of the opening ceremony. An outraged Spassky demands an apology.

The competition finally gets underway on July 11, nine days late.

– ‘Scandal of the century’ –

Spassky arrives 20 minutes early to the opening game to “vigorous applause” from the 2,500 spectators in the packed hall. Fischer dashes in at the last minute, “pushes past the photographers, rushes towards Spassky, shakes his hand” and sits down. The game is finally on.

The two proceed cautiously and at the 28th move, the game looks headed for a draw. But Fischer then makes two bad moves and resigns on the 56th move.

Stung by his loss, he demands that all cameras be removed from the hall. When the request is denied, he refuses to show up to the second game, forfeiting it. 

“The spectators are disappointed and exasperated,” AFP reports. 

Icelandic daily Timinn declares that the match of the century has turned into the “scandal of the century”. 

As the third game looms Fischer is nowhere to be found. Kissinger again picks up the phone. “Please, continue the game,” Fischer later quotes him as pleading.

The hall is packed when the competition resumes on July 16, but the stage is empty. Spassky has accepted Fischer’s demand that they play in a small back room normally used for ping pong (with a camera in the ceiling broadcasting the events to the main hall outside).

Some commentators see Spassky’s concession as a bad omen for the Russian, who goes on to lose the game.

The fourth is a draw and Spassky resigns the fifth.

The two are now neck-and-neck.

– Games for the history books –

The 6th game is one of the toughest of the competition. Spassky throws in the towel at the 41st move.

“I’m proud of this game, it was one of my best,” Fischer tells AFP, adding: “When Spassky joined the crowd in applauding my victory I thought ‘what a gentleman’.”

Spassky also resigns the 13th game, a chess masterclass, according to AFP’s correspondent, who reported that, after congratulating his opponent, Spassky “sits back down in contemplation for six minutes, his gaze lost in the chessboard”. 

Fischer is looking increasingly assured of victory. “He will be champion,” his sister Joan tells AFP after the seventh game.

The Russian asks that the 14th game be postponed and the next seven are all draws. 

Game 21, which goes to Fischer, turns out to be the last. The next day Spassky resigns the game, making Fischer, who is still asleep, the 11th world chess champion, with a final score of 12.5-8.5.

– From hero to zero –

With the chessboard seen as a metaphor for great power politics, Fischer’s win is feted in the United States as a symbolic victory of capitalism over communism. 

Nixon invites Fischer to the White House.

A broken Spassky returns to an icy reception in the Soviet Union, where he is banned from taking part in chess competitions and placed under surveillance by the KGB, the secret police. 

In 1976, he marries a Frenchwoman and moves to Paris, but the self-professed Russian nationalist later returns to Moscow.

Fischer never plays another chess competition. 

In 1975, he refuses to defend his title against the Soviet Union’s Anatoly Karpov and therefore loses it. A conspiracy theorist with a visceral hatred of “world Jewry” he disappears for years at a time, re-emerging in 1992 for a rematch against Spassky in Yugoslavia, despite the war-torn country being under US sanctions.

In 2004 he renounces his US citizenship and later moves to Iceland where he dies on January 17, 2008 at the age of 64 — the number of squares on a chessboard.

Muslim pilgrims cast pebbles in the “stoning of the devil” ritual marking the start of the Eid al-Adha holiday on Saturday, as this year’s expanded hajj pilgrimage was winding down.

From first light, small groups of worshippers made their way across the valley of Mina, near Mecca in western Saudi Arabia, to throw stones at three concrete walls representing Satan.

The ritual is an emulation of Abraham’s stoning of the devil at the three spots where it is said Satan tried to dissuade him from obeying God’s order to sacrifice his son, Ishmael.

The stoning ritual has in past years led to deadly stampedes, as millions of participants converge on a tight space.

The hajj, usually one of the world’s largest annual religious gatherings, is among the five pillars of Islam and must be undertaken by all Muslims with the means at least once in their lives.

In 2019, some 2.5 million Muslims from around the world took part. 

But that figure slumped to only a few thousand in 2020 and 60,000 in 2021, all of them Saudi citizens or residents, as the kingdom tried to mitigate the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

This year, participation was capped at one million fully vaccinated worshippers. Authorities said Friday that almost 900,000 were in attendance, nearly 780,000 of them from abroad.

Hosting the pilgrimage is a matter of prestige and a powerful source of political legitimacy for Saudi rulers, the custodians of Islam’s holiest sites. 

Barring overseas pilgrims for the past two years had caused deep disappointment among Muslims worldwide, who typically save for years to take part.

The hajj, which costs at least $5,000 per person, and umrah pilgrimages that occur at other times of the year are a major engine of Saudi Arabia’s tourism sector.

In normal times, they generate about $12 billion annually, keeping the economy humming in Mecca.

– Virus and heat –

After the stoning ritual, pilgrims return to the Grand Mosque in Mecca to perform a final “tawaf”, or circling of the Kaaba, the cubic structure that is the focal point of Islam.

Eid al-Adha, the feast of the sacrifice that begins on Saturday, marks the end of hajj.

Muslims across the world buy livestock for slaughter to commemorate the willingness of Ibrahim to sacrifice his son to show obedience to Allah.

On Friday, huge crowds of robed Muslim pilgrims prayed on Mount Arafat, the climax of the annual pilgrimage.

Groups of worshippers, many holding umbrellas against the fierce sun, recited verses from the Koran on the rocky rise where the Prophet Mohammed is believed to have given his final sermon.

After sunset, they travelled the short distance to Muzdalifah, where they slept under the stars before performing the stoning ritual.

– Covid fears –

The large crowds have spurred fears that Covid will spread, especially after many pilgrims remained maskless, despite claims by Saudi authorities that masks would be mandatory. 

The hajj has been taking place against the backdrop of a resurgence of cases in the region, with some Gulf countries tightening restrictions to keep outbreaks in check.

All participants were required to submit proof of vaccination and negative PCR tests.

Since the start of the pandemic, Saudi Arabia has registered more than 795,000 coronavirus cases, over 9,000 of them fatal. Some 67 million vaccine doses have been administered in the country of over 34 million people.

The hajj, whose timing is determined by the lunar Islamic calendar, can be physically draining even in ideal conditions, but worshippers this year faced an added challenge: scorching sun and temperatures climbing to 44 degrees Celsius (111 Fahrenheit).

In the narrow streets of Fez’s Old City, Morocco’s first capital, centuries-old places of learning are being revived to promote moderation in Islam, as their founders originally intended.

Studying at the 14th century Bou Inania madrassa (religious school), inside the UNESCO-listed walled city, offers a life “in the embrace of a venerable academic history”, according to student Moaz Soueif.

The Bou Inania madrassa is one of six such institutions to be renovated since 2017, under a program funded by Morocco’s government to preserve the city’s heritage and promote tourism.

Soueif, 25, shares the madrassa’s upper floor with around 40 students of the Qarawiyyin University, which was a world-leading spiritual and educational hub centuries before the European renaissance.

Adorned throughout with intricate inscriptions and mosaics, students are not Bou Inania’s only visitors. Tourists also flock to see the elegant open-air courtyard, graced by a central fountain and walls of carefully maintained tilework.

The madrassa sits just inside Bab Boujelloud, one of the Old City’s main entrances and a key landmark for tourists.

The nearby Cherratine and Attarine madrassas were also recently renovated for the benefit of tourists, who “usually say their time here feels spiritual and the Old City is really genuine”, according to guide Sabah Alawi.

Today, Fez serves as a monument to a highpoint of Islamic civilisation, the 13th and 14th centuries when Muslim rulers governed from Morocco to western China.

That period also represents a golden age in the city’s history, which had just been reinstated as Morocco’s capital after three centuries of being overshadowed by Marrakesh further south.

– Polymath pope –

Down a steep alley from Bou Inania lined with stalls selling traditional wares and local food, stands the Qarawiyyin mosque, built when the city was founded in the ninth century. 

It later became the heart of the university of the same name — one of the oldest in the world. 

Fez University history professor El-Haj Moussa Aouni said the city thrived in the 13th-14th centuries along with other centres across the Maghreb region — from Marrakech to Oran in Algeria and Kairouan in Tunisia.

The madrassas of Fez are “add-ons to the main university, which were used for teaching sciences such as maths, medicine, mechanics and music, as well as Islamic studies and literature”, he said.

The Qarawiyyin mosque has a large, roofless courtyard surrounded by pillars separating it from the covered sections, which are set aside for prayer and study.

The site is off-limits to tourists — although some take advantage of the doors being opened shortly before prayers to snap photos in the courtyard.

At the time of its establishment the university was one of the best in the world and hosted noted scholars such as Tunisian Ibn Khaldoun, seen as the founding father of sociology.

Another prominent figure believed to have studied there was Gerbert of Aurillac, a polymath who introduced Arabic numerals to Europe, is credited with inventing the mechanical clock, and later became Pope Sylvester II.

As well as preserving the city’s architectural treasures, the renovation work is part of Morocco’s wider efforts to promote moderation in Islam.

– Model of tolerance –

The scholars have left their mark on the city — such as at the Qarawiyyin library, home to some 4,000 manuscripts including an original donated by Ibn Khaldoun himself.

“It’s among the oldest libraries in the Islamic world,” said its rector Abdulfattah Boukachouf.

The 14th-century institution sits on a courtyard filled with the ringing of hammers of brass and silver workers. But in the reading room, last extended by Sultan Mohammed V — grandfather of the current King Mohammed VI — silence reigns.

In a corner, a team of women expertly restore delicate manuscripts.

Qarawiyyin University has started a new programme for post-graduate students who have excelled in writing and memorising the Koran.

Students cover “various Islamic studies, comparative religion, French, English and Hebrew, allowing them to understand other cultures”, said Soueif, from the northern town of Ksar El-Kebir.

“We should be a role model for tolerant Islam, at the same level of the great scholars who passed through here before us,” he said.

Japan on Saturday mourned the assassination of former prime minister Shinzo Abe, whose body was being moved to Tokyo from the western town where he was gunned down at close range on the campaign trail.

The murder of Japan’s best-known politician rattled the country and sent shockwaves around the world, particularly given the nation’s low levels of violent crime and strict gun laws.

The man accused of shooting Abe is in custody, with police saying he had confessed to assassinating the former premier, motivated by a belief Abe was linked to an unspecified group.

Police were investigating the unemployed 41-year-old’s background, including claims he had served in the Maritime Self-Defense Force, Japan’s navy, and said he appeared to have used a handmade gun.

Abe was delivering a speech in Nara ahead of Sunday’s upper house elections when he was shot, and campaigning resumed on Saturday morning, with politicians saying they were determined to show democracy would prevail.

“We absolutely must not tolerate violence during an election to suppress speech,” Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told around 600 supporters in central Japan’s Yamanashi region, according to the Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper.

The Yomiuri and other Japanese media at Kishida’s first campaign event since the assassination described a tense mood and high levels of security, with a metal fence put up to separate the leader from the crowd.

Early on Saturday, a funeral hearse carrying Abe’s wife Akie and believed to be transporting the former leader’s body left the hospital in western Japan where he was treated.

Doctors said Friday that Abe showed no vital signs when he arrived and died of enormous blood loss, despite massive transfusions.

They described multiple wounds to the politician’s neck, with the internal damage reaching as deep as his heart.

Abe’s murder shook Japan, with Kishida describing the killing as a “barbaric act” that was “unforgivable”.

He was visibly emotional after the former leader’s death was confirmed Friday, pronouncing himself “lost for words”.

– ‘Unacceptable act’ –

International reaction was similarly stark, with US President Joe Biden saying he was “stunned, outraged and deeply saddened”, and ordering flags on US government buildings to fly at half-mast.

Australia announced that the Sydney Opera House would be lit up on Sunday in tribute to Abe.

Even regional powers with whom Abe had clashed expressed condolences. South Korea’s president called the killing an “unacceptable act”, and the Chinese embassy in Japan praised Abe’s “contribution to the improvement and development” of ties.

Investigators were still piecing together a picture of the man behind the assassination and his motives.

He has been identified as Tetsuya Yamagami, and police said Friday he admitted to targeting Abe over a grudge against an organisation he believed the former leader was linked to.

They have declined to name the organisation, though Japanese media outlets described it as a religious group.

The gun he used “is clearly handmade in appearance”, investigators said, and several other apparently handmade weapons were uncovered by police in protective gear who raided Yamagami’s home on Friday.

The suspect, who has been arrested on suspicion of murder, opened fire on Abe shortly before noon on Friday.

Footage from public broadcaster NHK showed Yamagami, dressed in a grey shirt and brown trousers, approaching from behind before drawing a weapon from a bag.

At least two shots appeared to be fired, each producing a cloud of smoke. As spectators and reporters ducked, he was tackled to the ground by security.

– ‘A large bang’ –

Japanese media reported that a wake would be held Monday evening and a funeral on Tuesday for Abe’s close family and associates.

On Friday night and Saturday morning, a steady stream of mourners came to lay flowers and pray for Abe, who had been Japan’s longest-serving prime minister.

“I just couldn’t sit back and do nothing. I had to come,” said Nara resident Sachie Nagafuji, 54, visiting the scene with his son.

Abe was the scion of a political family and became the country’s youngest post-war prime minister when he took power for the first time in 2006, aged 52.

His turbulent first term ended in resignation for health reasons, but he returned to power in 2012 and stayed in office until the return of his ulcerative colitis forced a second resignation in 2020.

His hawkish, nationalist views were divisive, particularly his desire to reform the country’s pacifist constitution to recognise the country’s military, and he weathered a series of scandals, including allegations of cronyism.

But he was lauded by others for his economic strategy, dubbed “Abenomics” and his efforts to put Japan firmly on the world stage, including by cultivating close ties with US president Donald Trump.

burs-sah/kaf/cwl