Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

News

The Graphic Truth: National leaders killed since 1972

National Leaders Killed since 1972
Make us preferred on Google

Japan is mourning Shinzo Abe’s assassination. A private funeral is scheduled for Tuesday, followed by bigger ceremonies in Tokyo and Abe’s hometown in Yamaguchi Prefecture, where he was first elected to Japan’s House of Representatives in 1993. But the country has only begun to come to grips with the violent murder of its beloved former leader. While political assassinations often lead to greater instability — as in the case of Haiti’s late President Jovenel Moïse — Japan went to the polls on Sunday and delivered a resounding victory for Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party in the upper house. We look at countries where current and former heads of state have been killed in the past 50 years.

This article comes to you from the Signal newsletter team of GZERO Media, a subsidiary of Eurasia Group that offers balanced, nonpartisan reporting, and analysis of foreign affairs. Subscribe to Signal today.

More For You

People walk past near a campaign billboard featuring Milorad Dodik, Aco Stanisic, Savo Minic, Zeljka Cvijanovic and Damjan Skipina, candidates of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) in Bosnia and Herzegovina's 2026 general election, in Pale, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

People walk past near a campaign billboard featuring Milorad Dodik, Aco Stanisic, Savo Minic, Zeljka Cvijanovic and Damjan Skipina, candidates of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD) in Bosnia and Herzegovina's 2026 general election, in Pale, Bosnia and Herzegovina, September 29, 2026.

REUTERS/Amel Emric
EU vs. Russia on the ballot in BosniaBosnians will head to the polls this weekend for elections in one of the world’s most complicated political systems. Voters will elect three national presidents representing three main ethnic groups – one Bosniak, one Croat, and one Serb. Collectively, they serve as the country’s head of state. But the biggest [...]
A person holds a depiction of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, as people gather on the day of a campaign rally of a pre-candidate of the right-wing Brazil's senator Flavio Bolsonaro, ahead of the presidential elections, in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

A person holds a depiction of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, as people gather on the day of a campaign rally of a pre-candidate of the right-wing Brazil's senator Flavio Bolsonaro, ahead of the presidential elections, in Sao Paulo, Brazil, March 1, 2026.

REUTERS/Jorge Silva
Brazilians head to the polls on Sunday to take the first step in deciding the future of Latin America’s largest economy, and potentially the political direction of the entire continent.The field is crowded, but two major players stand out: left-wing president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva seeking a fourth nonconsecutive term, and right-wing Senator [...]
Unemployment on the up
Lottie Tellyn
Republicans won’t be happy with the final jobs report before the midterms. Job market growth was weaker than expected, adding fewer than half of the jobs economists had predicted. It was particularly bad for Black Americans, for whom the unemployment rate rose a whole percentage point to 7% – nearly double that of white Americans. Overall [...]
US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping watch a military demonstration from a balcony of the White House in Washington, D.C.

US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping watch a military demonstration from a balcony of the White House in Washington, D.C., US, September 24, 2026.

REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Just three years ago, people around the world viewed the US more favorably than China. That is no longer the case. According to data published by the Pew Research Center this summer, China now receives more favorable ratings in most of the 36 countries surveyed.It’s a dramatic change from just a year ago, when 49% of those surveyed had a favorable [...]