Long-time opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama took office as prime minister today, naming a new Cabinet and vowing to rebuild the economy and refocus Japan’s place on the world stage with his largely untested party.

Long-time opposition leader Yukio Hatoyama was elected prime minister of Japan today, promising to reinvigorate the world’s second-largest economy and shake up government with his left-of-centre party.

Japan’s new ruling party, fresh from last week’s landslide electoral victory, resumed stalled talks with two smaller parties today aimed at creating a coalition government.

JAPAN’S next prime minister Yukio Hatoyama has delighted environmental activists but worried business leaders by vowing to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 25% from 1990 levels by 2020.

JAPAN’S next prime minister began forming a government yesterday, as investors worried the untested Democratic Party would overspend in a bid to revive the economy or would ruffle ties with Tokyo’s closest ally, Washington.

Japan’s newly empowered leader Yukio Hatoyama rushed today to select Cabinet ministers after his party trounced the ruling conservatives in elections, ejecting them from power for only the second time in 54 years.

JAPAN’s ruling partyconceded a crushing defeat after 54 years of nearly unbroken rule as voters were poised to hand the opposition a landslide victory in nationwide elections, driven by economic anxiety and a powerful desire for change.

Japan’s ruling conservative party suffered a crushing defeat in elections Sunday as voters overwhelmingly cast their ballots in favour of a left-of-centre opposition camp that has promised to rebuild the economy and breathe new life into the country after 54 years of virtual one-party rule, media projections said.

Japan’s voters today went to the polls in hotly contested parliamentary elections in which the ruling conservative party, battered by a struggling economy and voter desire for change after more than half a century of virtual one-party rule, was expected to suffer an overwhelming defeat.

Japan’s top political leaders made their final appeals to voters today before crucial parliamentary elections that could bring a sweeping victory for the opposition and break the ruling party’s decades-long grip on power.

Japan executed three murderers today, including a serial killer who mutilated the bodies of young girls in the late 1980s in a case that triggered calls for tighter restrictions on violent pornographic videos.

Visitors to Japan face fingerprinting and photographing when they land as part of a crackdown on terrorists.

Former Foreign Minister Taro Aso declared his candidacy today to replace Japan’s prime minister, running as the conservative choice against dovish former Cabinet secretary Yasuo Fukuda.

Junichiro Koizumi has been elected Prime Minister of Japan in a parliamentary vote.