{"id":12493,"date":"2019-12-27T11:00:27","date_gmt":"2019-12-27T02:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/dec\/27\/isoko-mochizuki-the-troublesome-thorn-in-shinzo-abes-side"},"modified":"2019-12-27T11:00:27","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T02:00:27","slug":"isoko-mochizuki-the-troublesome-thorn-in-shinzo-abes-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=12493","title":{"rendered":"Isoko Mochizuki, the &#8216;troublesome&#8217; thorn in Shinzo Abe&#8217;s side"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tokyo Shimbun journalist says she is buoyed by \u2018ordinary people\u2019 to shrug off abuse and efforts by Abe\u2019s administration to frustrate her<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven Abe\u2019s friends in the media can\u2019t ignore this,\u201d says Isoko Mochizuki over lunch in between interviews and chasing down the day\u2019s most important political story \u2013 a scandal involving accusations that Japan\u2019s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, used a taxpayer-funded cherry blossom viewing party to reward political supporters. \u201cI think the prime minister\u2019s office is quite concerned.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For Mochizuki, a reporter on a left-leaning newspaper covering a conservative government likely to remain in power for some time, <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/14\/japans-pm-cancels-cherry-blossom-parties-after-outcry-over-florid-spending\">sakura<\/a><\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/nov\/14\/japans-pm-cancels-cherry-blossom-parties-after-outcry-over-florid-spending\">-gate<\/a> is her latest opportunity to make life uncomfortable for Abe and his colleagues.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2019\/dec\/27\/isoko-mochizuki-the-troublesome-thorn-in-shinzo-abes-side\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tokyo Shimbun journalist says she is buoyed by \u2018ordinary people\u2019 to shrug off abuse and efforts by Abe\u2019s administration to frustrate her\u201cEven Abe\u2019s friends in the media can\u2019t ignore this,\u201d says Isoko Mochizuki over lunch in between interviews and chasi&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":151,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[41,88,238,638],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific","category-japan","category-media","category-shinzo-abe"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/151"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12493"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12493\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12494,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12493\/revisions\/12494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}