Naoto Kan becomes new Japanese prime minister イラ官

Naoto Kan becomes new Japanese prime minister

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/04/AR2010060400279.html

TOKYO -- Hours before he became Japan's latest prime minister, Naoto Kan received a memo from his predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, that offered some advice that Hatoyama himself couldn't follow.

"Please take care of Japan-U.S., Japan-China and Japan-South Korean relations," wrote Hatoyama, who never managed in his short stint as premier to balance the needs of his own citizens and his closest ally.

Now Kan, Japan's fifth leader in four years, will inherit the problems that those before him struggled to solve -- a nagging debt, a history of fiscal scandals and lingering questions about the fate of a U.S. Marine base on Okinawa.

The Democratic Party of Japan overwhelmingly elected Kan, the country's finance minister, as its leader on Friday morning. Because the DPJ holds a majority in parliament, the vote all but secured Kan's position as the next prime minister. He formally took the post hours later after a parliament vote.