HAVING one Japanese gang headquartered in their neighbourhood was bad enough. When a rival mob tried to move in, neighbours did something that was once almost unthinkable.

A court in Japan convicted an alleged gangster and sentenced him to death today for the fatal shooting of a popular mayor in a crime that stunned a nation that takes pride in its rigid gun-control laws.

When Nagasaki’s mayor was fatally shot in southern Japan, it was not much of a surprise that a gangster was arrested for the attack.

The mayor of the south-western Japanese city of Nagasaki was shot outside a train station today and is in critical condition, news reports said.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe agreed with US President George Bush to take “decisive action” against North Korea at the UN Security Council over its nuclear weapons test.