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Tokyo
CNN
—
When Akie Matsuzaki married Shinzo Abe, then a rising political aide, in 1987, she followed a path well trodden by Japanese wives and gave up her job at the country’s largest advertising agency.
But over more than three decades of marriage – including nine years as Japan’s first lady – she proved to be anything but a conventional political wife.
In Japan, Akie Abe is best known for her outspoken and progressive views. Unlike her predecessors, she refused to stay in the shadow of her husband. Instead, the socialite carved out a public role for herself in a style more akin to American first ladies.
Akie Abe, 60, was widowed on Friday after the former Japanese Prime Minister was fatally shot in broad daylight while delivering a speech in the city of Nara, in an assassination that has shocked and angered the nation.
On Friday, she…
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