Shinzō Abe

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Japan's newly-named Prime Minister Shinzo Abe smiles as he waves at the media upon his arrival at the prime minister's official residence following his election at Parliament in Tokyo Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2012. Abe, whose nationalist positions have in the past angered Japan's neighbors, is the country's seventh prime minister in just over six years. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi)

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Liberal Democratic Party leader Shinzo Abe is all but certain to become Japan’s next prime minister after his party’s victory in Sunday’s parliamentary election. Mr. Abe resigned as prime minister for health reasons after just a year in the job in 2007. One of his goals is to recover Japan’s economic vitality of the 1980s and ‘90s. His nationalist policies could rile China, hurting the auto industry and others with huge investments in the fast-growing Chinese market. (Associated Press)