Japan's stubborn PM sends defiant parting shot

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2006

TOKYO (AFP) — Flamboyant in his gestures and stubborn to the end, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has fired a defiant parting shot as he prayed at a controversial war shrine.

The silver-haired 64-year-old, Japan's longest-serving premier in three decades, leaves office in September after more than five years in which he has alternately infuriated and awed pundits and policymakers.

Koizumi has turned the job of Japan's premier from drab bureaucrat to celebrity-in-chief, hobnobbing with visiting Hollywood celebrities and releasing CDs of his favorite rock 'n' roll and opera tracks.

A reformist at home who finally persevered in his career-long goal of breaking up the powerful post office, Koizumi has been equally uncompromising with Japan's neighbors....