Haven't we put off problems without clarifying Japan's will to protect the lives and assets of its people and territory with its own hands, and merely accepted the benefits of economic prosperity?
I swear I will do everything in my power to change the situation in Tibet where human rights are being suppressed. Tibet seeks freedom and democracy and we agree on those values.
I have to express sympathy from the bottom of my heart to those people who were taken as wartime comfort women. As a human being, I would like to express my sympathies, and also as prime minister of Japan I need to apologize to them.
On the 26th of December of last year, I took office for my second term as prime minister. And it is the first time ever since then-Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, during the occupation period, that a prime minister is taking this position for the second time with a number of years in between.
When I served as prime minister last time, I failed to prioritize my agenda. I was eager to complete everything at once, and ended my administration in failure. After resigning, for six years I traveled across the nation simply to listen.
Thinking ahead, in 2013, the Japanese government, together with pharmaceutical companies and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, established a fund for promoting research and development of medical products for neglected tropical diseases (NTDs). The importance of planning for disease outbreaks was made clear with the Ebola virus.
