Former opposition leader Sasaki dies at 85

TOKYO, Japan - The late Ryosaku Sasaki (C), a former chairman of the now-defunct opposition Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), is shown in this file photo with colleagues celebrating the DSP's 25th anniversary in 1985. Sasaki died at midnight March 8 of heart failure at a Tokyo hospital. He was 85. He chaired the DSP for seven years and five months until April 1985. The DSP was established in 1960 and merged in December 1994 into the New Frontier Party, which has since been dissolved.