Nagasaki city mayor shot
Originally uploaded by nofrills.
The mayor of Nagasaki City was shot just before 20:00, Tuesday 17 April 2007, just outside of (or at the door of) his election campaign office. He was shot from the back. He was taken to Nagasaki University Hospital and he is in critical condition - cardio-respiratory arrest (心肺停止).
www.nagasaki-np.co.jp/press/gougai/20070417/01.pdf
This pic is a TV screen collage. The NHK's Nagasaki office is very near (like 300 metres) to the shooting scene, and so the they were at the scene before the ambulance crew took the victim to hospital.
Row 1, left: Paramedics, police and crowd
Row 1, right: Crowd (passers-by) and the police
Row 2, left: Ambulance and the TV crew
Row 2, right: Ambulance
Row 3, left: The victim, Mayor of Nagasaki City, Mr Iccho Ito (伊藤一長) speaking to the public last Sunday.
Row 3, right: One witness, who happened to be near the scene.
The mayor, Mr Ito, has been strongly against nuclear arms -- Nagasaki is one of the two cities that were A-bombed in 1945, the other being Hiroshima.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Na...
The mayor's speeches, the Peace Declaration, on the A-bomb anniversary every year (9th August) have been translated into English. I did a quick search on the web and found some:
www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=6155
www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0809-03.htm
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4133572.stm
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0XPQ/is_2002_August_12/ai...
The press says the gunman, who was arrested at the scene, is a member of the largest criminal gang (暴力団, or yakuza).
Mr Ito was born in Nagasaki in 1945 (the year the city was A-bombed). He has been the mayor of the city since 1999. The city has an election next Sunday and he runs for the forth term.
headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20070417-00000096-mai-soci
The city of Nagasaki has public bidding problems/scandals and the gunman tells the police that it was the reason.
www.chugoku-np.co.jp/News/Sp200704170369.html
But I am not fully convinced -- in 1990, Mr Motojima, mayor of Nagasaki at the time, was shot and wounded after he exprpessed his views on the war and the Emperor Hirohito. Though he was a conservative politician, he said the Emperor had the responsibility. (My translation here is very rough, so please check a more reliable source if you really want to know about this.) Anyway I know little about Nagasaki City and don't know what exactly is going on.
[UPDATE]
For news articles in English:
news.google.co.uk/news?ned=uk&ncl=1115453030&hl=e...
According to the Jiji.com news, the mayor is almost braindead. He was shot twice from the back, and the two bullets tore his heart, which means he was shot at close range.
headlines.yahoo.co.jp/hl?a=20070418-00000014-jij-soci
[UPDATE 2]
He was declared dead at 02:28 (JST), 18 April 2007. 合掌.
