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Head of state
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Profile
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<p>Akihito succeeded his father, Hirohito, in 1989. Under the 1947 constitution, Japan's emperors have a purely ceremonial role. </p>
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<p>Thailand is a constitutional monarchy. </p>
<p>Its king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, assumed the throne in June 1946 and is the world's longest-reigning monarch. </p>
<p>The royal family is revered by many Thais.</p>
<p>Thailand has strict lese-majeste laws, and those deemed to have offended the monarchy - which is still a powerful force in the country - are often dealt with severely.</p>
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Prime minister
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Profile
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<p>Shinzo Abe became Japan's prime minister for the second time in December 2012, after his Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) scored a landslide election win.</p><p>He previously served a brief term as premier in 2006-7, when he was Japan's youngest leader since World War II.</p>
<p>He began his first term in office with a high approval rating, but a series of scandals and gaffes damaged the government, and with support for his administration plummeting, Mr Abe stepped down, citing ill health.</p>
<p>The centre-left Democratic Party (DPJ) came to power in August 2009 - having also won a landslide election - but quickly lost popularity as a result of a mounting financial crisis. The DPJ government also struggled to cope with the aftermath of the March 2011 tsunami, and was in its turn beset by a series of scandals.</p>
<p>By the autumn of 2012, faced with a "fiscal cliff" brought on by the country's public debt mountain - the highest debt to GDP ratio in the industrialised world - and the crippling after-effects of the nuclear crisis triggered by the tsunami, the DPJ had no choice but to call an early election.</p>
<p>On returning to the premiership in 2012, Mr Abe acknowledged the widely held perception that the LDP's sweeping victory owed a lot to anger at DPJ failures, and was not necessarily a statement of confidence in the conservative party that had previously ruled Japan almost continuously for half a century.</p>
<p>Known as a right-wing hawk, Mr Abe comes from a high-profile political family. His father was a former foreign minister, while his grandfather, former Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi, was arrested as a suspected war criminal after World War II but never charged.</p>
<p>Shinzo Abe won his first seat in parliament in 1993 and was appointed to the cabinet for the first time in October 2005, when he was given the important role of chief cabinet secretary.</p>
<p>During his first premiership, he showed himself to be an outspoken populist, pushing for a more assertive foreign policy and a greater role for Japan on the world stage.</p>
<p>Under his administration, a bill was passed setting out steps for holding a referendum on revising the country's pacifist constitution.</p>
<p>He also called for a greater sense of national pride and backed a law requiring the teaching of patriotism in schools.</p>
<p>He provoked anger in China and South Korea when he said there was no evidence that women were forced to become sex slaves by the Japanese army during World War II. He later apologised for these remarks.</p>
<p>After standing down from the premiership in September 2007, he temporarily disappeared from the political spotlight. He returned to the political stage in September 2012 with his election as LDP leader, and soon expressed strong views on the ongoing territorial rows with China and South Korea.</p>
<p>The main challenge that he faces is the state of the economy. His decision to weaken the yen seemed to reap dividends when exports rose 10.1% in May 2013 - the fastest annual rate since 2010. </p>
<p>He went on to win control of the upper house of parliament in July, seeing this as an endorsement of his economic and foreign policy.</p>
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<p>Yingluck Shinawatra, the youngest sister of ousted former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, led the opposition Pheu Thai party to a landslide victory in July 2011 and became Thailand's first woman prime minister.</p><p>In the country's first general election since 2007, Pheu Thai won 265 seats out of a possible 500 - enough to form a single-party government. </p>
<p>However, in what was seen as a shrewd political move, the party announced it would form a coalition with four smaller parties, thus broadening its support in parliament for promised reforms. </p>
<p>Ms Yingluck, aged 44 at the time of her election and a successful businesswoman, promised to bring stability and reconciliation to what had for some years been a deeply polarised country. However, critics were quick to point out her inexperience, given that she had never before run for office nor held a government post. </p>
<p>The influence of her brother, who was ousted in a 2006 military coup and convicted of graft two years later, loomed large throughout the election and beyond. Despite living in self-imposed exile, Thaksin Shinawatra is still seen by many as pulling the strings of government behind the scenes.</p>
<p>The opposition claimed that Ms Yingluck's primary role was to marshal the Thaksin faithful - the mainly poor rural voters who kept him in power - and serve as his proxy as he governed from abroad. </p>
<p>Though Thailand enjoyed relative stability for the first two years of Ms Yingluck's premiership, an attempt to pass a political amnesty bill in the autumn of 2013 - which would have allowed Mr Thaksin to return from exile without serving his jail term - reignited simmering political tensions.</p>
<p>The opposition brought its supporters out onto the streets in their tens of thousands, and mass protests continued for months.</p>
<p>In December, Ms Yingluck dissolved the lower house of parliament and called early elections for February 2014 in a bid to defuse the crisis. This does not appear to have satisfied the opposition, which continues to call for her to step down and has announced that it will boycott the elections.</p>
<p>Analysts say that despite the protests, Ms Yingluck still enjoys a strong rural support base, which could be enough to return her to power in the next elections.</p>
<p>Yingluck Shinawatra has degrees in politics and before running for election she had a corporate career in telecommunications and property. She is married and has one son. </p>
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