is a Japanese politician. Ishiba is a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), and is the leader of the Suigetsukai party faction, and a member of the Heisei Kenkyūkai faction, which was then led by Fukushiro Nukaga, until 2011. Ishiba served as Director General of the Japan Defense Agency under Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi from 2002 to 2004. He was Minister of Defense under Yasuo Fukuda from 2007 to 2008 and Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries under Tarō Asō from 2008 to 2009. The LDP lost government in 2009, entering Opposition. In 2012, he sought to challenge Opposition Leader Sadakazu Tanigaki for the presidency of the LDP, but was defeated by former Prime Minister Shinzō Abe. He accepted the position of Secretary-General of the LDP on 27 September 2012. From 3 September 2014 to 3 August 2016, he served in cabinet as minister overseeing regional economic revitalization and policies aimed at reversing population decline. Early life Ishiba is a native of Yazu District, Tottori. His father Jirō Ishiba was a politician and government official who served as Minister for Home Affairs, Vice-Minister of Construction, Governor of Tottori Prefecture, and a member of the House of Councillors; his mother was an educator. After his father became the Governor of Tottori Prefecture in 1958, the family moved from Tokyo to Tottori; Ishiba has no memory of living in Tokyo. After graduating from Tottori University Junior High School, he studied at Keio Senior High School. Ishiba studied law at Keio University, graduating in 1979. He entered Mitsui Bank the same year after graduation. He left the bank after his father's sudden death in 1983. Political career In 1983, Ishiba began his political career by working at the secretariat of the Thursday Club, one of the factions in the Liberal Democratic Party. In 1985, at the age of 28, he was elected to the House of Representatives as the youngest member in Japanese history. Ishiba was appointed as the Minister of Defense to the cabinet of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on 26 September 2007, serving in that post until 1 August 2008. Ishiba was the second person in the cabinet of Fukuda to express belief in the existence of UFOs after Nobutaka Machimura. To that end he appeared on a Japanese TV program which featured dubbed extracts from the National Geographic Channel's Alien Invasion series in June 2012. Following Fukuda's resignation, Ishiba