84 lawmakers, including 8 cabinet members, visit Yasukuni Shrine

A total of 84 lawmakers, including eight cabinet members, visited the war-related Yasukuni Shrine on Wednesday for its annual fall festival amid efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to mend ties with China and South Korea over history issues. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuhisa Shiozaki said the visits, which included those by two senior vice ministers, were "a matter of each person's beliefs on how to deal with the war dead."

Among the 84 lawmakers, 75 were from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, including Tsutomu Takebe, former party secretary general, and one was from the main opposition Democratic Party of Japan. Eriko Yamatani, a special adviser to Abe, and seven others were from the cabinet.